152 THE SPORTSMAN IN FRANCE. 



vation, inasmuch as without it no person 

 can ever hope to be a sportsman ; posi- 

 tion, for on placing yourself will mate- 

 rially depend the fiUing of your bag ; 

 tenace, as it rests with yourself, and 

 the aid of your dog, to command success. 

 A man to be a sportsman must have 

 been born with a predilection for this 

 healthy pastime, or, as my friend Mr. 

 Deville would say, with the bump of 

 philo-detonativeness strongly developed. 

 Poetanascitur nonfit; and the same rule is 

 to be applied to the knight of the trigger. 

 But how many lovers of field sports of 

 the present day^ assume to themselves the 

 title of sportsman without the slightest 

 ground for such assumption, or perhaps, 

 more properly speaking, presumption ! 

 How very few of those who enter the 

 field possess the necessary qualifications 

 to entitle them to such an enviable dis- 

 tinction ? Patience, observation, presence 



