THE KEYNOTE OF SPORT 9 



and course moorland hares, and my heart has 

 beat as fast with excitement and tension as 

 we crawled and crouched nearer and nearer 

 the quarry, to give the dog the chance of 

 a thirty or forty yards' start, as when I am 

 going into the stalk of a gallant red deer ; and 

 my pleasure is as great to bring home a well- 

 stalked coursed hare as the biggest stag I 

 have ever accounted for. I can only reason 

 this out by my keynote. It applies to all 

 the other forms of sport. Unfortunately the 

 attainment in most of them involves kill- 

 ing, at best instantaneously. Here it is that 

 hunting (especially fox hunting) has its differ- 

 ent characteristic. To find your fox and 

 hunt him is to the bulk of those who come out 

 hunting as good an attainment of object as to 

 catch and kill him. Now in all other sports 

 the object is not attained unless the subject 

 be killed alas that it should be so! but pro- 

 vided this be done as quickly and as pain- 

 lessly as possible the odium of cruelty need 

 not necessarily be incurred by the actual 

 taking of life. The more difficult the attain- 



