306 SHOOTING. 



retreated when disturbed by the approach of man. 

 However troublesome we found the intrusions of 

 the feline race during the night, they seldom at any 

 other time shewed the least disposition to molest us 

 unless we commenced hostilities.'" He, however, 

 does justice to the terrors of the maned monarch 

 when he says, " those who have seen him in crip- 

 pling captivity only immured in a cage barely 

 double his own length, with his sinews relaxed by 

 confinement have seen but the shadow of that 

 animal which ' clears the desert with his rolling 

 eye ! ' r There ! with that roar we dismiss the 

 monsters carrion, after all, saving wild-boar hams, 

 buffalo steaks, and stewed elephanfs feet, of the 

 peculiar delicacy of which we presume not to speak ! 

 A sly shot in a walled park though it is not sport- 

 ing were worth fifty such broiling adventures. 

 Reader, cast thine eye across the page see with 

 what a temptation the young Bard of Avon was be- 

 set, and thou wilt forgive him from thy soul, though 

 he was a poacher. Thou smackest thy lips like an 

 alderman of the old school, or a common council- 

 man of the new thy thoughts are of venison only 

 natural enough, for the idea of sport is associ- 

 ated with something wild. Well ! statelier horns 

 are hidden only by a few intervening leaves. Let 

 us pass through the inclosure in which these spot- 

 ted creatures lie ; and, at one bound northwards, 

 we will land you where one or other of them 



Trout and salmon, grouse and deer, 

 'Ploy the sportsman all the year ! 



