SMALL SHOT 



i. SOME POOR MEN'S RICHES 



THERE are many who have inherited the hunting 

 instinct and were born too late to find game enough 

 in the region of their birth to make hunting worth 

 while for the game that can be got by the most 

 persistent seeking, and who have not inherited 

 wealth, nor the faculty of acquiring it, so that they 

 may go for a week, month, or year, to places where 

 game is still abundant. Some of these sometimes 

 wonder whether this inheritance, come down to 

 them through a thousand generations from wild 

 ancestors, is not under such conditions an entailed 

 ill-fortune, a wholesome desire, given without the 

 opportunity of satisfying it, a purse of gold that 

 one must always carry but never spend. 



Most assuredly it is an unprofitable dower if it 

 leads one to too continual pursuit of what at best 

 he can get but little of, mere game. But if it takes 

 him to the woods and fields for that reasonable 

 share of recreation which belongs of right to all, 

 rather than to questionable pastimes among ill- 

 assorted associates, then it is something to be 

 thankful for. With a gun to excuse his day's out- 

 ing he goes forth. His wits are sharpened to find 

 the haunts of the infrequent woodcock or quail or 



