226 SHIKAR SKETCHES. 



a white man. We love to remember the day 

 when we saw the lordly stag, accompanied by his 

 harem, browsing in some open glade of the forest, 

 or perhaps standing out in bold relief on the top 

 of a hill, against the skyline at the first flush of 

 dawn ; we love to remember the pains we took to 

 circumvent him, and match our human reasoning 

 powers against his marvellous sense of smell and 

 keen vision ; and still more dearly do we love to 

 recall that, to a sportsman's ear, most delicious 

 sound, the answering ' thud ' of our bullet, 

 and perhaps the long weary tramp after our 

 wounded quarry, and then to picture our delight 

 at finding him dead perhaps some miles off from 

 where we had fired at him, and we found our toil 

 and perseverance rewarded by a noble pair of 

 antlers. 



There are dozens of men good and true sports- 

 men, with both rifle and spear, on foot or mount- 

 ed, who yet will not be bothered with the (to 

 them) tediousness attending stalking. How much 

 they miss seeing many of the glories of nature, 

 only those know who have participated in this, 

 the poetry of sport. 



To such men I can only say that beating for 

 deer bears as much comparison to stalking them, 

 as shooting a home-bred pheasant in England 

 does to knocking over a wily, twisting snipe on a 



