* LEAVES FEOM A GAME BOOK. 



formed a magnificent stretch of well-stocked ground, 

 on which the black-game and woodcock shooting was 

 something quite out of the common. At the end of 

 Mr. Virtue's lease this ground was broken up into five 

 or six diff'erent shootings, which naturally largely 

 reduced the head of game. My "bag," however, has 

 only been given to show one has had a fair chance of 

 seeing a good deal of all sorts of sport, for in point 

 of numbers it is not extraordinary, and my readers 

 must not think I wish to infer that the mere fact of 

 helping to put into the larder a great lot of "stuff"" 

 can of itself make a good sportsman ; for it would be 

 easy to mention the names of scores of good fellows 

 who assist each season in the killing of many thousand 

 head of game, chiefly pheasants, to whom — as I construe 

 the word — it would be a misnomer to apply the word 

 sportsman, for "shooters" or "gunners" would describe 

 them more accurately. 



A sportsman, as I read the term, is one — ^no matter his 

 rank or calling — who has a thoroughly close acquaintance 

 with the natural history, habits, haunts and wily ways 



