



WARWICK WOODLANDS. 97 



tangled woods, or on the wild hill tops this, surely, to the re- 

 flective sportsman and who can be a true sportsman, and not 

 reflective is the great charm of his pursuit." 



" And do you not think that this pleasure exists in a higher 

 degree here in America than in our own England ?'' 



" As how, Frank ? I don't take." 



" Why, in the greater, I will not say beauty for I don't 

 think there is greater natural beauty in the general landscape 

 of the States but novelty and wild ness of the scenery ! Even 

 the richest and most cultivated tracts of America, that I have 

 seen, except the Western part of New York, which is unques- 

 tionably the ugliest, and dullest, and most unpoetical region on 

 earth, have a young untamed freshness about them, which you 

 do not find in England. 



" In the middle of the high-tilled and fertile cornfield you 

 come upon some sudden hollow, tangled with brake and bush, 

 which hedge in some small pool where float the brilliant cups 

 and smooth leaves of the water lily, and whence, on your ap- 

 proach, up springs the blue-winged teal or gorgeous wood-duck. 

 Then the long sweeping woodlands, embracing in themselves 

 every variety of ground, deep marshy swamp, and fertile level 

 thick-set with giant timber, and sandy barrens with their scrubby 

 undergrowth, and difficult rocky steeps ; and, above all, the 

 seeming and comparative solitude the dinner carried along 

 with you and eaten under the shady tree, beside the bubbling 

 basin of some spring all this is vastly more exciting, than 

 walking through trim stubbles and rich turnip fields, and lunch- 

 ing on bread and cheese and home-brewed, in a snug farm- 

 house. In short, field sports here have a richer range, are much 

 more various, wilder " 



" Hold there, Frank ; hold hard there ; I cannot concede the . 

 wilder, not the really wilder seemingly they are wilder ; for, 

 as you say, the scenery is wilder and all the game, with the 

 exception of the English snipe, being wood-haunters, you are 

 led into rougher districts. But oh ! no, no ! the field sports 

 are not really wilder in the Atlantic States at least nor half 

 so wild as those of England !" 



" I should like to hear you prove that, Archer," answered 

 Frank, " for I am constantly beset with the superiority of Amer- 

 ican field sports to tame English preserve shooting !'' 



** Pooh ! pooh ! that is only by people who know nothing 

 about either ; by people who fancy that a preserve means a 

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