53 SALMOKID^. 



moiety of the geographical and scientific researches and dis- 

 coveries of the globe are due to sportsmen — sportsmen in the 

 truest acceptation of the word — heroes who have defied the 

 scathing heats of Africa, bored into the penetralia of the 

 frigid zone, cruised on the Stygian waters of the Colorado, or 

 chmbed the dividing ridge of a great continent, and from its 

 summit viewed two oceans. Of such stern stufi" was Audu- 

 bon, the hunter naturalist, who assumed habits as hardy and 

 simple as those of the wild creatures themselves, that he 

 might mingle with them and read them in their freedom. 

 Of such was Lord Dufierin, who left his couch of luxurious 

 ease and in his own yacht penetrated far into the hyper- 

 borean realm, defying the elements, and enduring the piti- 

 less breath of an Arctic atmosphere. 



Conned over in the privacy of one's inner thoughts, the 

 chequered experiences of the sportsman's life oft take shape 

 in words which, transformed to paper by aid of press and ink, 

 do make a book. Eecorded in the simple language of truth, 

 these homely annals of the wilderness constitute a staple of 

 manly literature which need not shame the authors. Where 

 shall be found. such speaking photographs of forest life as are 

 delineated in the stupendous and magnificent works of Au- 

 dubon? or such a combination of the aesthetic and beautiful 

 as appears in Bethune's Walton ? The experiences of Hum- 

 boldt, Kane, Herbert, Lord Dufierin, Mungo Park, Eoss 

 Brown, Agassiz, Cummings, Gerard, Baker, Livingstone, 

 Prime, Trollope, Cozzens, and hosts of others, are they not 

 written in living characters that do honor to the name of 

 sportsman ? These furnish a mental pabulum far more en- 

 tertaining and instructive than the scrannel notes of so-called 

 literature upon which modern fashionable society gorges it- 

 self. 



Sportsmen become authors almost perforce of circum- 

 stances which they themselves create. Chock-full of informa- 

 tion obtained by personal research, and glorying in new discov- 

 eries by land or sea, it is as natural for them to publish to the 



