HAPPY HUNTING-GROUNDS 



CHAPTER I 



PLEASANT PLACES 



HAPPY hunting - grounds ! How many delightful 

 visions swim into the focus of my memory as I strive 

 to recall the early scenes of my rambles with rod, 

 gun, and rifle ! 



" Thro' many an hour of summer suns, 



By many pleasant ways, 

 Against its fountain upwards runs 

 The current of my days." 



The lines have indeed fallen to me " in pleasant 

 places." From the earliest time when I was permitted 

 to toddle after my father as he strolled round the 

 garden with a gun, or to watch him as he filled a 

 bucket with eels from some flooded backwater of the 

 Lune near Kirkby-Lonsdale with bunches of worms 

 threaded on worsted, I have loved sport and nature 

 and have had ample opportunities of enjoying the 

 delights of both. 



I have found happy hunting-grounds everywhere, 

 but I do not invite the reader to accompany me in 

 pursuit of the " rats and mice and such small deer " on 

 which my early prowess was exercised. Perhaps the 



A 



