THE BAEBAKIANS 



25 



])y implication the sportsman, of cruelty. Nature's killing is not 

 cruel, but frees wild life from the troubles of old age, disease, and 

 natural death ; and the sportsman does no more than take his part 

 in such killing, and in so doing gains his sympathy with wild life, 

 of which, by the way, he mitigates the conditions by the close time 

 which he grants his game in the breeding season. 



Having said thus much I may venture to carry a sting in my 

 tail. The man who believes himself to be inflicting pain on brute 

 creatures, even if they actually feel none, and takes pleasure in what 

 he thinks he is doing, is brutalising himself. But such an one is 

 never w^orthy of the name of sportsman who though a killer never, 

 pace the Gamhridge Revietv, " kills for the joy of killing." And if no 

 sportsman then no beagler, for all beaglers are sportsmen. 



Having thus, I hope, cleared the air, we may proceed with the 

 annals of beagling and other sport at Cambridge. 



