PREFACE. 



A PORTION of some of the chapters in this volume has 

 appeared in the form of articles in Blackwood's Magazine, 

 Cornhill, and Fry's Magazine, and I wish here to make my 

 acknowledgments to the Editors of these periodicals. 



The hunting districts I have described in the following 

 pages fall into two categories. They are either, as in the 

 case of Norway, Canada, and Newfoundland, within easy 

 distance of Great Britain, or else they are altogether out 

 of the beaten track. A considerable part of the ground 

 covered in Patagonia, Labrador, and even in Newfoundland, 

 had not previously been visited by sportsmen, and there the 

 conditions remain to the best of my belief unaltered in the 

 short time which has elapsed since I passed through them. 



A few statistics may be of interest. Apart from the 

 game which I was forced to shoot in order to feed a com- 

 paratively large party in crossing Patagonia, I find that 

 during the trips dealt with in this book, as far as I can 

 calculate, I fired at an animal on an average once for every 

 six days' hunting. I mention this because an idea seems 

 to be prevalent among a section of the community that 

 big game shooting is inseparable from slaughter on a large 

 scale. 



