CHAPTEE I. 



PERSONAL HINTS FOR HUNTING MEN. 



Personal advice is so near akin to rudeness that we 

 approach the subject of this article with more than 

 ordinary diffidence. If a man is told that he ought 

 to train for hunting as he would for rowing or any 

 other athletic pursuit, he invariably replies that he 

 hunts for pleasure, and has no intention of making 

 a toil of his pleasure. To the man who considers it 

 a toil to keep himself in ordinary physical condition 

 there is no rejoinder, for the man who does not 

 deem good health to be one of the blessings of life 

 is beyond the reach of argument. In his case we 

 must paraphrase the proverb, and write, "mens insana 

 in corpore insano" We do not mean to state that the 

 hunting man must train as if he were going to ride 

 a race ; we only say that he ought to be in fairly 

 hard condition. 



It has been asserted that no man can ride across 

 four fields even, over a line of gates, at a hard gallop 

 unless he is in good condition. Experto crede. Let 

 the man who denies the truth of the assertion try 

 the experiment. If he does manage to reach the 



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