3 66 UTILITARIAN ZOOLOGY 



slightest sign of fear! He knows where he means to go, and 

 all the safe refuges en route; and if he gets tired he is familiar 

 with the woods, where he can find a friend to take his place." 

 The limited space here available must necessarily be devoted 

 to briefly reviewing the animals which are of importance from 

 the sporting stand-point, including those which assist man in 

 the chase. Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, and Fishes are the only 

 groups with which we are concerned, though the " naturalist " 

 who hunts down insects or the like merely to add to his collec- 

 tion is more of a sportsman (in a very small way) than a man of 

 science; often, however, he is neither! 



MAMMALS (MAMMALIA) AS AIDS TO SPORT 



It is a natural consequence of the slow rate of human loco- 

 motion that several Mammals have been pressed into the service 

 of man in order to make up for this deficiency, or, it may be, 

 reduce the element of danger. From time immemorial, in many 

 sorts of sport, horse and elephant have saved him the work of 

 using his own legs, while dog or falcon have pursued the quarry 

 and tackled it at close quarters. 



THE HORSE (Eo_uus CABALLUS). The combination of intelli- 

 gence and speed by which the horse is characterized, and its 

 susceptibility to thorough domestication, have naturally led to its 

 large employment in the chase. The extraordinary way in which 

 the long-continued influence of man has resulted in the production 

 of widely different breeds of the same kind of animal is here very 

 strikingly exemplified. A well-bred hunter combines to perfec- 

 tion the two desiderata of speed and endurance, and it is, to all 

 intent and purposes, a product of human ingenuity, without 

 which many forms of sport would be comparatively tame and 

 featureless. It may also be remarked in passing, that without 

 highly specialized breeds of horses certain forms of sport which 

 do not depend upon the existence of a quarry, such as horse- 

 racing and trotting, could never have attained their present high 

 pitch of perfection. By the practice of what may almost be 

 called a species of artificial evolution, man has been here able 

 to further his own ends in a remarkable manner. 



THE INDIAN ELEPHANT (ELEPHAS INDICUS). The use of this 

 animal in tiger-shooting is too well known to need description. 



