ON BIG GAME SHOOTING GENERALLY 



>7 



stag was hit after all (far back, perhaps), and you may get 

 him, although the shot hardly deserved such a prize. In 

 any case it is your duty as an honest sportsman to do 

 your utmost to find 

 out whether you have 

 wounded a beast, and, 

 if so, to do all in your 

 power to secure him 

 and put an end to his 

 pain, rather than leave 

 him to take a better 

 chance which may offer. 

 The greater part of 

 what has been written 

 so far applies either 

 to shooting big game 

 generally or to stalk- 

 ing : a word or two 

 may well be devoted to 



still hunting a form of the chase much practised in America 

 and other well-wooded countries. 



Still Hunting 



Almost every fresh form of sport brings a fresh set of 

 muscles, a hitherto little used sense or mental quality, into play, 

 so that an all-round sportsman should be that very exceptional 

 animal, a man in the full possession of all his faculties. 



On the mountains a man depends upon his feet and upon 

 his eyes ; in the woods he has to place at least as much reliance 

 upon his ears as upon his eyes ; whilst his feet in still hunting 

 are to the beginner the very curse and bane of his existence. 



Except in wet weather or to a redskin, still hunting is an 

 impossibility in any true sense of the term. When for weeks 

 in Colorado there has not fallen one drop of rain, when sun 

 and wind have parched the whole face of Nature, every twig 

 and every fallen leaf upon the forest floor become absolutely 



Interlaced antlers 



