HOW TO GUT IT. 113 



endurance, and is more easily taught. Greyhounds, 

 bloodhounds, foxhounds, setters, and even the common 

 cur, are used as above indicated. The first two lack 

 intelligence; the third and last are difficult to train; 

 while the setter, though otherwise a fine animal for such 

 hunting, cannot stand the heat arid aridity of the dry plains. 



It is difficult, and fortunately unnecessary, to decide 

 upon the relative merits of the rifle and shot-gun. 



The lover of the shot-gun has a quicker and more 

 frequent return for his expenditure of time and effort. 

 He has, moreover, the companionship and opportunity to 

 admire the wonderful instinct nay, more, the human sa- 

 gacity of his dog, without which shot-gun work is no sport. 



I have known many keen, indomitable sportsmen 

 who expressed the utmost contempt for the rifle and its 

 returns; men who would work all day for a dozen 

 quail, but not an hour for the chance of a deer. I love 

 both arms, and always take both with me for a hunt on 

 the plains, but, to my thinking, the rifle is the noblest of 

 weapons. 



The man who succeeds with it must have patience, 

 endurance, a quick eye, and a steady nerve. His oppor- 

 tunities are more rare, but their results infinitely more satis- 

 factory. The one is dilettante work, delightful coquetry, 

 with many pleasing objects changeable at pleasure ; the 

 other, ' grande passion,' faithful to one aim, and culminating 

 in supreme satisfaction, intelligible only to the initiated. 



In the Eastern States, where the hunter is put on a 

 stand at a runway, and the deer driven by him at full 

 speed by the hounds, the shot-gun is in almost universal 

 use, and is undoubtedly for such hunting the best arm. 

 To my taste this is, at best, a mean kind of hunting ; 

 only exceeded in meanness, indeed, by the boat-hunting 

 of the Adirondacks. This last is simply despicable. On 

 my first visit to that celebrated region I committed a 

 murder, which has since lain heavily on my conscience. 



Preliminaries having been arranged, I was sent with 



I 



