THE LIFE OF A SPORTSMAN 147 



fact very much doubted by naturalists, and certainly of 

 rare occurrence in the southern parts of England. With 

 a brace of well - broken retrievers, flapper - shooting, 

 whether at ducks or teal, is very good sport, and rendered 

 valuable by its being seasonable previously to the com- 

 mencement of game-shooting, to which it of course gives 

 place. 



At partridge-shooting, Frank Kaby was now become an 

 adept. In fact, there was but little difference, in the 

 contribution to the bag, between himself and the elder 

 Perren ; and as for Jem, he bowed to the superiority of 

 his young master, who, he was heard to say, " he believed 

 would turn out a capital sportsman, in spite of all that 

 had been done to spoil him, by sending him to Eton and 

 Oxford." And our hero, with a gun in his hand, was a 

 sportsman in the strict sense of that word, and not merely 

 what, in these times, is more reckoned upon, namely, " a 

 dead shot." " The latter," as Mr. Cobbett eloquently 

 expressed himself, in allusion to the admirers of the 

 modern battue system, "never participates in that great 

 delight which all sensible men enjoy at beholding the 

 beautiful action, the docility, the zeal, the wonderful 

 sagacity of the pointer and the setter ; " but their merit 

 consists in rarely missing a pheasant which is found for 

 them by men-beaters, and in slaughtering as many head 

 of game in a day, as a sportsman, who takes pleasure 

 in finding them, would be satisfied with in a week. 

 Pheasants, however, were not, at this period, plentiful 

 on the Amstead estate, but their rarity increased their 

 value. There were, in those days, no "sky-rockets of 

 pheasants," as in the technical language of these, when 

 a cloud of them rises in a corner of a cover into which 

 they have been driven, and three or four fall at a shot. 



We will now exhibit our hero at the county races, it 

 being his first appearance on a race-course since he had 

 visited Ascot during his sojourn with his uncle in 

 London, the account of which we have detailed. It 

 appeared that he had brought along with him, from that 

 aristocratic meeting, a few aristocratic ideas, and, amongst 

 them, the notion that it was considered very slow indeed 

 to be a looker-on at any species of diversion without having 

 an interest in it; and in this case, having no bond fide interest 

 in the horses none appearing in his name he could only 

 concern himself with their performances. His betting- 



