■DEEK- STALKING.] 



SHOOTING. 



[deee-stalkiko. 



desire to ramble amidst pleasant fields, to 

 gambol on banks of daisies, to cull buttercups, 

 or to weave, for their hair, coronets of green 

 rushes. In the breasts of many, this love 

 "grows with the growth, and strengthens with 

 the strength ;" in some, it is well nigh ex- 

 tinguished ; in others, it peeps out in a 

 diminished form. In difierent ranks, it is 

 exhibited under different aspects. What in- 

 duced the elder "Wortleys "to build a lone 

 lodge on "Wharncliffe ?" "Was it their love of 

 solitude or retirement? Not exactly. We 

 are told, " that they might resort unto it to 

 hear the wild bucks bell." And what induces 

 the magnates of modern times to pitch their 

 tents periodically in the Highlands ? Osten- 

 sibly to shoot the grouse, leister the salmon, 

 or stalk the red-deer. la this their only 

 motive ? Do they not exhibit a partiality 

 for field sport because it brings them more 

 immediately into contact with nature ? They 

 derive pleasure from hearing the whirr and 

 cry of moorland fowls, from noting the habits 

 of animals, or from observing the heath-covered 

 hills under their ever-varying character of 

 light and shade. And what pleasure do sports- 

 men take in detailing their experiences of these 

 things, or describing the instinct and sagacity 

 which their dogs have exhibited under various 

 circumstances! Certainly such men are 

 naturalists. The love of nature discloses itself 

 610 



perhaps more modestly in other ranks of life. 

 Is it not manifested at the village parsonage, 

 with its embowering creepers mantling the 

 walls, and the carefully trained shrubs which 

 decorate the garden ? Does the six days' 

 pent-up mechanic take up his Sunday stroll 

 merely to inhale the fresh air, or to exercise 

 his limbs ? The songs of skyward birds, and 

 the incense of delicate flowers, must, we think, 

 give a zest to his walk. The same principle is 

 visible in the tradesman, who loves his villa, 

 with its grassy slopes and beds of flowers ; in 

 the husbandman, who has a longing to till 

 fields and tend cattle, or to employ himself in 

 those never-ending processes of agriculture, 

 which are the natural employment of man. 

 Nay, the love of nature exists even in the 

 hearts of crowded cities. The intercourse of 

 man with man, the strife of trade with trade, 

 may have subdued, but not destroyed it. The 

 rose, the lily, the mignonette, exhibited in the 

 windows of the rich, and the half-starved, 

 smoke-dried wretch of a geranium in the 

 windows of the poor, alike attest that, although 

 their possessors are cut off by barricades of 

 brick and stone, from intercourse with nature 

 in her woods and fields, their love for her is 

 not entirely extinguished. May it increase, 

 and with it all those enjoyments which gene- 

 rally follow in the train of innocent and 

 edifying pursuits ! 



