PEEFACE 



This little Catechism on Hunting is intended for 

 the use of beginners, like its predecessors on 

 Fishing and Shooting, and was suggested by the 

 instructions given to my own children from past 

 experience. That experience has been a wide 

 one. Just forty-one years ago, at the age of nine- 

 teen, I joined the Rifle Brigade, and bought my 

 first horse for a very modest sum ; and I have 

 never been without a horse since that time. 



An allowance of £200 per annum, in addition 

 to a subaltern's pay, out of which all regimental 

 subscriptions to mess and band funds had to be 

 paid, besides travelling expenses, and the cost of 

 keeping up an expensive uniform, with private 

 clothes, did not afford much margin for buying a 

 horse and then keeping it. I did not therefore 

 venture on the expense of a groom, but essayed 

 to manage for the horse myself, with the assist- 

 ance of my soldier servant, whose only qualifica- 

 tion for the task was that he had been in the 

 Camel Corps in the Indian Mutiny ! No sooner 

 did the horse arrive than we were in difficulties 

 at once, and I found the one of us knew about as 

 much, or rather as little, as the other. However, 

 we managed somehow, and the pleasure I got out 

 of my horse was immense. 



