CHAPTER V 



DEER -SHOOTING 



There is a great fascination in tracking and shootino- bio- 

 game, a fascination that wants a certain amount of check- 

 ing, or the sportsman degenerates into a common butcher. 

 Excessive slaughter is, in my opinion, one of the most 

 selfish of crimes ; for though man has an hereditary 

 interest in the wild creatures of the world, it is an 

 entailed, not an absolute, interest, and it is his bounden 

 duty to remember and guard the interests of his suc- 

 cessors. He who exterminates all the game on an estate 

 deprives his descendants of one of the chief pleasures 

 of possession. On a private estate the mischief may not 

 be irreparable : on a public one (the waste places of the 

 world at large) it certainly is. Therefore the man who 

 would not be considered a public enemy, ought to shoot, 

 however remote the hunting-ground, with moderation. 

 There are others to come after him ; and a world denuded 

 of wild creatures would be a spoiled world. 



The fall of my first buck gave me such pleasure that 

 I was anxious to repeat the exploit. There were, how- 

 ever, no deer in the immediate neighbourhood of the 

 huts, and continual falls of snow made distant journeys 

 undesirable for a time. At length, however, we had fine, 

 bright weather, with the surface of the snow frozen hard. 

 This was the condition required for snow-shoe travelling, 

 and I took my first lessons in this method of progression. 

 Everybody has read descriptions of snow-shoes ; I need 

 not therefore waste time here by describing them, or 

 their use, at length. Suffice it to say that they are a 



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