PREFACE. 



So kind and indulgent were the Press and the public in 

 their reception of " Chasing and Racing," wherein I set down 

 my experiences in the hunting-field and on the turf, that 

 I have been emboldened to submit yet another venture to 

 their good graces. " A Sportsman at Large " may well 

 be described as a companion volume to the one mentioned. 

 Those who have had the hardihood to wade through " Chasing 

 and Racing," or even to dip into its discursive pages, will, 

 no doubt, wonder how it came about that I was able to 

 indulge in shooting, fishing, coursing, etc., when I was so busy 

 with hounds and racehorses. The fact is, that my sporting 

 life has been divided into well-defined eras. It is true that 

 some of these have overlapped, and that, at times, hounds, 

 hunters, racehorses, greyhounds, show and sporting dogs, 

 guns, fishing-rods and hunting-horns have become inex- 

 tricably mixed ; but one or two particular pursuits have 

 always dominated the rest. 



In my childhood's and adolescent days I had but little to 

 do with the equine element and all it portends and provides ; 

 but I was busy with rod and gun all the time. So when a 

 cruel Fate made hunting and racing quite impossible for my 

 finances to deal with, I fell back again upon the latter imple- 

 ments of slaughter. Hence the present book shows, in medias 

 res, a hiatus in its chronological sequence, the gap being 

 that period in which I was master of the M. and H. V. H., 

 and, later, of the O. B. H., and when I was owning, training 

 and riding my own horses under J. C. and N. H. Rules ; 

 although I did manage occasionally to put in a little desultory 

 practice with rod and gun during that time. Such " side- 

 shows " I have touched upon in the said " Chasing and 



