2 A Sportsman at Large 



Happy is he who combines efficiency in field sports with 

 proficiency in games, competitions and pastimes. 



If what I have set down is a correct diagnosis of the inborn 

 sportsman, I think I may fairly rank myself as a case in point ; 

 for, from my earliest days, I was a lover of living things, and 

 all the glories and mysteries of the wild. But I regret to say, 

 I so far dissembled my love, that I was able and willing to 

 shed the blood of the beloved ones somewhat joyfully, when 

 my sporting spirit so demanded. 



On the other hand, before I became a hunter of the woods 

 and waters with lethal intent, I delighted in gathering together 

 a sort of miniature Zoo, which I fathered with loving care. 

 I would take callow rabbits from their snug " stops " and 

 reduce them to domesticity. I would secure birds by means 

 of sieves, brick-traps and bat-folding nets, and confine the 

 victims in capacious aviaries. Even the obnoxious mouse 

 and the unspeakable rat were imprisoned and reformed ; 

 whilst patent " catch- 'em-alive " traps, set in the fields and 

 woodlands, provided me with a bunch of long-tailed field 

 mice, voles (field and water), dormice and shrews. Many 

 species of birds were brought up from the nest, my most 

 successful rearings being crows, magpies, jays, starlings and 

 jackdaws, together with thrushes, blackbirds and the various 

 finches. Curiously enough, I could never bring a young 

 missel thrush to maturity ; while most of my starlings failed 

 to survive their first moult. Of course I had many an aquarium 

 containing small fish of the pond variety, with a host of beetles, 

 larvae, crustaceans and other unconsidered trifles. Also 

 vivariums in which sedate toads, saltatory frogs and agile 

 lizards disported themselves. 



But all the time my predatory instinct was alive, if as yet 

 only sub-conscious. It manifested itself, in the first instance, 

 in the form of a chronic angling obsession. Unless memory 

 plays me false, the first fish that fell to my lure was abstracted 

 from the ocean, but I did not " get away with it " as the 

 Americans say. It happened thus : 



I fancy that, at the time, I was aged about five years (the 

 older one grows the more vivid are the memories of early 

 events, some of which appear to have been of very trifling 



