ARMA VIRUMQUE CANO' 91 



about game and shooting. I have known many A.'s 

 and many B.'s, have learnt much from both, and I 

 never could see why A. should undervalue or dis- 

 believe in the undoubted qualities of B., calling 

 him pot-hunter, poacher, or 'unsophisticated native 

 gunner,' nor why on earth B. should be so fond of 

 writing to the ' Field ' to abuse and ridicule A., 

 denouncing him as effeminate, cruel, and ignorant of 

 natural history or sport, and darkly hinting at his life 

 of vice and dissipation, while denying him the energy 

 to pursue it ; abusing the drives he has never taken 

 part in, and the shooters he has never met, and making 

 himself ridiculous and offensive on a subject which 

 should be a bond of brotherhood between all classes 

 of Englishmen. When the Marquis of Carabas (very 

 wisely) invites B. to take part in the slaying of 200 brace 

 of partridges or 1,000 pheasants in one day, I have 

 never known B. to refuse to shoot with him or to meet 

 his enemy A. If A. has had too much whisky and 

 soda and rubicon besique the night before, he will get 

 his eye wiped by B. at some of the high pheasants 

 over the valley ; and if Lord Carabas is in doubt how 

 to get that big lot of birds back from the boundary 

 fields and how to realise them, he is likely to get as 

 good an opinion from B. as from A. But when the 

 birds have been brought back, and over the guns, A. 



