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FRANK FORESTER S FIELD SPORTS. 



of!', nineteen times out of twenty. That is a fact," quo' he, 

 *' and there are not many men, beside us and John Verity, and 

 Raynor Rock, who are up to that performance. Uncle Ben 

 Raynor could do it once, and Dan thinks he can do it now ; 

 but, as Peter Probasco says, ' I have my doubts.' Multitudi- 

 nous sportsmen may shoot well, but none but a man of true ge- 

 nius can shoot splendidly. Shooting, in its refinement and glory, 

 is not an acquired art, a man must be born a shot, as much as 

 he must be born a poet. You may learn to wing-break a starved 

 pigeon, sprung out of a trap, fifteen or twenty yards off"; but to 

 stop a Cock in a thick brake, where you can see him only with 

 the eye of faith, or to kill a vigorous Coot, cutting the keen air, 

 at daybreak, at the rate of three miles a minute — requires an 

 eye, and a hand, and a heart, which science cannot manufac- 

 ture. The doctrine of Pliny, the naturalist, contained in his 

 chapter on Black Ducks, is coiTect beyond a question : ' Lit- 

 gere et scrihere est pcedagogi ; sed optime collineare est Dei P 

 Reading and writing are inflicted by schoolmasters, but a crack 

 shot is the work of God, 



" ' Them's my sentiments,' as Peter again says." 

 And Heaven defend that I or any other should depreciate the 

 sport which can inspire * them sentiments' to any writer. Poor 

 fellow ! whether he were born a shot or no, assuredly he was 

 born a poet, the very laureate of American field sports and 

 sportsmanship. Hear with what strains the flight of Canada 

 Geese inspired him, and then say, gentle reader, was he not, in 

 the largest sense of the word, bom a poet : 



" They come, they tear the yielding air, with pennon fierce and strong, 

 On clouds they leap, from deep to deep, the vaulted dome along ; 

 Heaven's light horse, in a column of attack upon the pole; 

 Was ever seen, on ocean green, or under the blue sky. 

 Such disciplined battalia as the cohort in your eye ;— 

 Around her ancient axis, let old Terra proudly roll, 

 But the rushing flight that's in your sight, is what will wake your soul. 



" Hawnk ! honk I and forward to the Nor'wa'd, is the trumpet tone, 

 What Goose ran lag or feather flag, or l)ri-ik ihe sooilly hone, 

 Hawnk ! onwards to the cool blue lakes wlirre lie our safe love bowers, 



