6 Introduction. 



offered. He would think it folly to give the hare a chance of 

 running when he could shoot her sitting ; he would make an 

 excellent dish of all the trout he could snare ; and as to hit- 

 ting his man when down, he would think it madness to allow 

 him to get up again until he had put him hors de combat 

 by jumping on him. Their notions of sporting and ours, 

 then, widely differ ; they take every advantage, while we 

 give every advantage ; they delight in the certainty of kill- 

 ing, while our pleasure consists in the chance of the animal 

 escaping. 



I would always encourage the love of sport in a lad ; 

 guided by its true spirit of fair play, it is a feeling that will 

 make him above doing a mean thing in every station of life, 

 and will give him real feelings of humanity. I have had great 

 experience in the characters of thorough sportsmen, and I 

 can safely say that I never saw one that was not a straight- 

 forward, honorable man, who would scorn to take a dirty ad- 

 vantage of man or animal. In fact, all real sportsmen that I 

 have met have been really tender-hearted men — men who shun 

 cruelty to an animal, and who are easily moved by a tale of 

 distress. 



With these feelings sport is an amusement worthy of a 

 man, and this noble taste has been extensively developed s«nce 

 the opportunities of traveling have of late years been so won- 

 derfully improved. The facility with which the most remote 

 regions are now reached renders a tour over some por- 

 tion of the globe a necessary adjunct to a man's educa- 

 tion, and a sportsman naturally directs his path to some 



