r li E P A C E. 



These " Keminiscences of a Huntsman" are offerea 

 to the Public, in the hope that, while tliey may- 

 afford amusement to the Reader, whether sportsman 

 or naturalist, they may at the same time convey to 

 the booted and spurred of the rising generation a 

 higher appreciation of the animals of their use or 

 abuse ; for in many kennels I have seen as much of 

 the one as of the other. 



Many men have really seemed to me to opine that 

 a horse was only made to be sat upon, jerked in the 

 mouth and spurred, whipped or driven, while hound 

 and dog were locomotive machines, unsusceptible of 

 weariness, to be lashed when in fault, and ridden 

 after when in the right, and tliat neither the one nor 

 the other were susceptible, under better treatment, of 

 increased capabilities. In short, their owners seemed 

 to fancy, that, " like the walnut-tree, the more you 

 beat them, the better they be ;'' and that the duty of 

 a huntsman lay in throwing the hounds into cover, 

 while that of a whipper-in was to give a cut to every 

 liound on road and field that came within the reach 

 of his long whip. There is an old saying, that " not 

 one horse in a thousand suits a single snaffle, and 

 that not one man in a million is fit to be intrusted 

 with a curb." To that old saying I add, that there is 



