xviii INTRODUCTION 



grateful acknowledgment is due, namely to Mr. 

 Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United 

 States, who, notwithstanding the press of official 

 duties, has found time to write the interesting 

 Foreword. A conscientious historian of his own 

 great country, as well as one of its keenest sports- 

 men. President Roosevelt's qualifications for this 

 kindly office may be described as those of a modern 

 Master of Game. No more competent writer 

 could have been selected to introduce to his 

 countrymen a work that illustrates the spirit 

 which animated our common forbears five cen- 

 turies ago, their characteristic devotion to the 

 chase, no less than their intimate acquaintance 

 with the habits and " nature " of the wild game 

 they pursued : all attributes worthy of some study 

 by the reading sportsmen of the twentieth century, 

 who, as I show, have hitherto neglected the study 

 of English Venery. It was at first intended to 

 print this Foreword only in the American Edition, 

 but it soon became evident that this would give 

 to it an advantage which readers in this country 

 would have some reason to complain of, so it was 

 inserted also in the English Edition, and from it 

 taken over into the present one. 



London, March 3, 1909. 



