a INTRODUCTION. 



Should, therefore, this volume meet with any 

 slight approval from sportsmen, it will, I be- 

 lieve, be more due to the clever pencils of the 

 artists than to the unskilled pen of the author, 

 who is but a novice in the fields of literature, 

 and whose hand has been more accustomed to 

 the use of rifle, spear, and gun than of the pen. 



If the perusal of these pages should prove 

 the means of wiling away an idle hour, one of 

 the writer's objects will have been attained; 

 and if further it should induce younger men to 

 devote their superfluous energies to excelling 

 in the sports of the field, and acquiring some 

 knowledge of Natural History, instead of wasting 

 time, money, and health in vice and frivolity, 

 these pages, if they do no other good, will not 

 have been written quite in vain. 



THE AUTHOR. 



GEEENHAM HOUSE, 

 BEAMINSTER. 



