4 THE GROUSE 



reared on moors divested of sheep, than 

 on moors where more or less full stocks 

 of sheep are kept all the year round. 



While in all ages unmistakable traces 

 are to be found of the devotion of the 

 human race to what is so well known in 

 our day under the generic name of sport, 

 and while systematic records of this pro- 

 pensity in man are early to be met with, 

 it is scarcely beyond living memory that 

 the vast fields of sport by rod and gun of 

 the present day were begun, and have 

 gradually risen into that importance, 

 complexity, and profit which now dis- 

 tinguish them. 



Without dwelling too long on the 

 earlier evidences of the antiquity of sport, 

 which is to all sportsmen a fascinating 

 study, it will be well, preparatory to 

 dealing with the particular item of the 

 sportsman's repertory which we are here 

 concerned with, to give some account of 

 the genesis of the chase in our own 

 country, and of the conditions under 

 which it has been followed and controlled 



