50 EEMINISCEXCES OF A SPOETSMAX. 



ventured to attack fox-hunting, and its chief and 

 honoured supporters, and pitched into those sort of 

 sports, that make us the manly people we are, we'd 

 have bm-nt it, sir, have burnt it along with the editor's 

 efifigy in every country town and market-place in the 

 kingdom ; aye, d — n me, we would, even if some twenty 

 couples of stout hunting whips weren't anxiously seeking 

 to make the acquaintance of the writer. And see what 

 comes of your go-a-head progress, march of intellect, 

 and the Lord knows what. Look at your dogs again ; 

 what's become of the steady, double -nosed Spanish 

 pointer, who never made a mistake, eh ? Wliy you've 

 done away with him for a racing, tearing, galloping 

 steam engine, who hardly makes anything else. Even 

 where you pretend to preserve, as in everything else, you 

 over do the thing. And what do you know of partridge 

 shooting as a sport ? what can you care about it when 

 the birds are like flocks of rooks, not coveys. Is it 

 worth your while to study the habits of this wily bird, 

 when you have only to enter a field to find seven or 

 eight coveys ? Not a bit ; and, look you, a partridge is 

 a wily bird, and has more cleverness than you give him 

 credit for, and many a time has an old hen carried 

 her covey away from me, out of harm, in spite of all 

 my experience. But what do you care about that ? 

 ' Let's find another covey,' that's your motto. Not mine 

 though ! . . . 



" Well, well ; I only know that what with your new- 

 fangled notions of farming ; and what with your grub- 

 bing up the hedgerows and spinneys, and your pot- 

 hunters, and game sellers, battues, and breech-loaders, 

 the country, I maintain, is losing its sportsmanlike ways, 

 and going right away, sir, to the very devil." 



