Books on Big Game 



The nineteenth century has been, beyond all others, 

 the century of big game hunters, and of books about big 

 game. From the days of Nimrod to our own there have 

 been mighty hunters before the Lord, and most warlike 

 and masterful races have taken kindly to the chase, as 

 chief among those rough pastimes which appeal naturally 

 to men with plenty of red blood in their veins. But 

 until the present century the difficulties of travel were so 

 great that men with a taste for sport could rarely gratify 

 this taste except in their own neighborhood. There 

 was good hunting in Macedonia in the days of Alexander 

 the Great]" there was good hunting in the Hercynnian 

 forest when Frank and Burgund were turning Gaul into 

 France; there was good hunting in Lithuania as late as 

 the days of the Polish Commonwealth; but the most 

 famous kings and nobles of Europe, within historic 

 times, though they might kill the aurochs and the bison, 

 the bear and the boar, had no chance to test their 

 prowess against the mightier and more terrible beasts of 

 the tropics. No modern man could be more devoted to 

 the chase than were the territorial lords of the Middle 

 Ages, and their successors in continental Europe to the 

 beginning of the present century; indeed, they erred 

 generally on the side of fantastic extravagance and ex- 

 aggeration in their favorite pursuit, turning it into a 

 solemn and rather ridiculous business instead of a healthy 



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