INTRODUCTION 



XXIU 



As a chronicle of sterling sport, admirably carried out, " Nimrod's 

 Hunting Tours " must be regarded as the text-book and veritable 

 history of the palmy days wherein lived and moved, with the 

 characteristic vigour of their pursuit, the luminaries who have shed 

 the light of their achievements upon the Annals of the Chase. 

 These respected w-orthies were fortunate in their historian, for 

 Apperley was a rare combination of the brilliant writer allied with 

 the thoroughbred sportsman ; and the present production must be 

 recognized as the unique outcome of all these exceptional circum- 

 stances combined. Moreover, the result is a no less unique avenue 

 for sporting illustration, richly furnishing opportunities for pictorial 

 embellishment, which, strange to say, is now for the first time 

 attempted. Nor have we gone far afield in our selection of pictures, 

 the materials being contained so profusely in the text ; we have 

 confined the pictures exclusively to examples referred to by the 

 writer, and specially alluded to in the hterature of the Tours. The 

 various subjects reproduced, like the narrative, are strictly historical 

 and actually contemporaneous ; the great Masters and their no less 

 eminent Huntsmen— alike ardent devotees of sport— are figured 

 fron/the authoritative original pictures to which they respectively lent 

 their countenances, as the illustrations which embellish the present 

 version abundantly show for themselves. 



