STRENUOUS DOGS AND SPORT IN AMERICA 153 



changed his mind and would not have it home; and once or 

 twice he has counted his kills during a day, but never made a 

 written note of them. It has always appeared to the author that 

 sport is its own reward, and that records are rather sad reading, 

 and trophies create memories of the noble dead, and not always 

 pleasant ones. It seems easier to take an interest in other 

 people's records than in one's own, and to admire trophies that 

 one did not victimise. 



Surely a true spirit of sport may be the possession of one 

 whose whole household idols are his gun and rifle, and whose 

 total impedimenta are a portmanteau and gun-case. The greater 

 one's belongings, and the more one grows to care for them, 

 the less ready one becomes to go far afield for sport, and the 

 more one is inclined to cling to old memories, even without 

 the assistance of trophies and private written records. 



Feats of sport that can be forgotten are not worth remem- 

 bering, for if enjoyment depended upon the size of the bag or 

 the grandeur of a trophy, every day in which the old record was 

 not beaten would be a day lost, whereas, in sport for its own sake 

 alone, every triviality is supreme for the time being, and one is as 

 keen for small things or great at sixty as at sixteen, although 

 and more is the pity a great deal more self-critical. 



The author has not ventured to trouble the possible reader 

 with these personal reflections without a purpose a purpose of 

 making small things interesting, if that may be in an atmo- 

 sphere of fashion and big bags. 



An American prairie chicken and a quail are very small 

 birds, and nowhere are they to be had in the abundance of 

 Norfolk partridges or Yorkshire grouse. But they are as 

 keenly pursued as any game in this country, and the writer was 

 at least as gratified with small-bag successes as he has ever 

 been with bigger bags in this country. 



There are many reasons for the appreciation of even small 

 bags of prairie chicken or quail. One is that the birds are for 

 the most part for those who can find them. The actual shooting 

 is so much the smaller matter. You find yourself on a prairie 

 apparently as big and as flat as the Pacific Ocean. In the far 



