58 WITH THE WOODLANDERS. 



provided the officers' mess, when they were on 

 foreign service, and his own mess as well, with 

 many a game dinner when they were on short 

 rations. The poor fellow fell in action, and those 

 who were left behind lamented him greatly, for 

 they said the best caterer for knick-knacks a regi- 

 ment ever had was gone thus proving, in the most 

 direct manner, that if great talents are not fully 

 appreciated in one place, they may be in another. 

 The hunting instinct is one that belongs to Eng- 

 lishmen, and it has been one of the causes that in 

 past times enabled us, as a nation, to do what we 

 have done, to hold our own. Colonel Peter Hawker, 

 that rare old sportsman, writing at the beginning 

 of the century, said (of professional poachers) : "Per- 

 haps many of those who prescribe laws are not 

 aware that most poachers are in a society, and 

 have a stock purse to support each other, by which 

 means they are enabled to snap their ringers at a 

 five-pound penalty." And again : " It absolutely re- 

 quires a very old sportsman, who has discovered all 

 the secrets of poachers, to strike at the roots of 

 this evil, and not legislators, who are worthy of a better 

 officer 



