xxvi FOREWORD TO FIRST EDITION 



Gaston Phœbus's La Chasse was written just 

 over a century before the discovery of America ; 

 " The Master of Game " some fifteen or twenty 

 years later. The former has been reprinted many 

 times. Mr. Baillie-Grohman in reproducing (for 

 the first time) the latter in such beautiful form 

 has rendered a real service to all lovers of sport, 

 of nature, and of books — and no one can get the 

 highest enjoyment out of sport unless he can live 

 over again in the library the keen pleasure he 

 experienced in the wilderness. 



In modern life big-game hunting has assumed 

 many widely varied forms. There are still re- 

 mote regions of the earth in which the traveller 

 must depend upon his prowess as a hunter for 

 his subsistence, and here and there the foremost 

 settlers of new country still war against the game 

 as it has been warred against by their like since 

 time primeval. But over most of the earth such 

 conditions have passed away for ever. Even in 

 Africa game preserving on a gigantic scale has 

 begun. Such game preserving may be of two 

 kinds. In one the individual landed proprietor, 

 or a group of such individuals, erect and maintain 

 a private game preserve, the game being their 

 property just as much as domestic animals. Such 

 preserves , of ten fill a useful purpose, and if man- 

 aged intelligently and with a sense of public spirit 



