558 iktn^s of tbe 1Rofc t IRifle, ant> (Bun 



civilised man. But that it is born in some men no one 

 can deny, and the man who is born with it cannot 

 suppress it if he wished. It takes possession of him, 

 a dominant passion affecting his whole temperament 

 and character. Baker has thus attempted to describe 

 his conception of this love of sport : 



" Now the actual killing of an animal, the death itself, 

 is not sport, unless the circumstances connected with it 

 are such as to create that peculiar feeling which can only 

 be expressed by the word ' sport.' This feeling cannot 

 exist in the heart of a butcher : he would as soon 

 slaughter a fine buck by tying him to a post and knock- 

 ing him down, as he would shoot him in his wild native 

 haunts the actual moment of death, the fact of killing, 

 is his enjoyment. To a true sportsman the enjoyment 

 of the sport increases in proportion to the wildness of 

 the country. Catch a six-pound trout in a quiet mill- 

 pond in a populous manufacturing neighbourhood, with 

 well-cultivated meadows on either side of the stream, fat 

 cattle grazing on the rich pasturage, and, perhaps, 

 actually watching you as you land your fish ; it may be 

 sport. But catch a similar fish far from the haunts of 

 men, in a boiling rocky torrent surrounded by heathery 

 mountains, where the shadow of a rod has seldom been 

 reflected in the stream, and you cease to think the former 

 fish worth catching ; still he is the same size, showed the 

 same courage, had the same perfection of condition, and 

 yet you cannot allow that it was sport compared with 

 this wild stream. If you see no difference in the excite- 

 ment you are not a sportsman : you would as soon catch 

 him in a washing-tub, and you should buy your fish when 



