SPORT, AND WILD LIFE 197 



only a watching from some dark place, broken in the spirit. The space and 

 and robbing when no one is looking, law which were agreed upon, as though 

 To such we owe the uncertain tenure the animals had sat in council, were 

 of the osprey on our lakes, the thinning cancelled by the marksmanship of 

 out of the kingfishers on our streams, the pigeon trap, with guns of greater 

 and the tenuity of other forms. It precision and rapidity of action. A 

 were well that the possession of rare eggs state of things, which could only be 

 should be more strictly accounted for ; fair if it were balanced by some further 

 and museums should no longer be the privilege or concessions. How far 

 chartered receivers of stolen goods, that is from being the case, we shall 

 By his acts, one great sportsman-natur- see by-and-by. No longer was the 

 alist gave countenance to this brood, pursuit a thing apart. It touched not 

 whom, at the same time, he despised, its devotees to higher issues. It pro- 

 It was as the naturalist and not as fessed no chivalry as it reckoned 

 the sportsman that he offended " Pec- up the day's kill. It is not too much 

 cavi," he confessed. to say that it ceased to be sport and 



Virile, chivalrous, and charming became shooting. The puff of smoke 

 was the sport of seventy years ago : on the hillside lost its glamour, and 

 its sanctions, the unwritten laws so thinly veiled but for a moment an un- 

 binding on a gentleman. Each sports- hallowed deed. It demoralized even 

 man was jealous of its honour and the quarry : for there is such a thing, 

 privileges ; impatient of its degradation. The pact while it lasted gave a morale 

 He loved the birds, alive or dead : and to game : partly reflected it may be, 

 thought one who did not, a butcher or appealing to the imagination : but 

 a gunner : he did not see the differ- no less a feature in the situation, 

 ence : neither do I. He looked askance Instead of the breezy and chivalrous 

 at the parvenu without traditions or traditions of the field being carried 

 natural affections. Sport, he sought into the relations of common life, 

 for its own sake, and was satisfied with the moods and calculations of the 

 its returns in spiritual currency. city were practised in the field. To 



Greed, boastfulness, and all un- get as large a bag as possible, however 



knightly things crept in. Traditions filled, was the new commercial ideal, 



passed. The forms remained indeed ; " Give the beggars a chance of course, 



but, what was kept in the letter was but hang it all, we must have numbers." 



