II 



THE CREATURES OF THE WILDERNESS 



IF all Englishmen could spend their lives at 

 home, even supposing- that the prospect at- 

 tracted them, they would have no reason to 

 complain that their own country provided them 

 with too little opportunity for either sport or 

 nature-study, since, thanks in great measure 

 to wise laws and also to the exclusion from 

 great private estates of what our American 

 friends pleasantly call " game-hogs, " the shoot- 

 ing and fishing in these islands, if in some 

 respects a little artificial, are equal to those of 

 any other country in Europe and superior to 

 the sport of most. Few animal stories are 

 more interesting than those of the fox, the 

 otter, or the red deer ; few birds are more 

 attractive to the naturalist and sportsman than 

 the red grouse ; few fishes are more exciting 

 to the angler, or more puzzling to the student, 

 than the salmon. No continental country 

 affords finer deer-stalking or salmon-fishing 

 than Scotland, and in none, certainly, is the 

 sport of fox-hunting better understood or more 



43 



