AND THE PRESENT DAY 9 



another gun, and so on. The word is given, and 

 away they go, taking a field in a beat. As you fire 

 — possibly there are two or three guns popping at the 

 same bird — a keeper falls out, and finds it with his 

 retriever, whilst you are going on. Can this be 

 called sport ? If is nothing more than pot-hunting, 

 wholesale butchery. Give me my brace of pointers 

 and setters, and let me shoot my game to points ; 

 there is some pleasure in that. What can be a 

 more beautiful sight to the shooting man than to 

 see a brace of well-bred dogs, ranging and quartering 

 their ground like clockwork, backing and standing 

 like rocks, steady before and behind, and dropping to 

 fur and wing, as if they were shot ? Working to 

 hand, and obeying your slightest word — beautiful, 

 intelligent creatures — there is some pleasure in 

 shooting over such animals as these. 



Then driving is another pot-hunting system, and 

 does no end of harm ; and so those who practise it 

 will find out before many years are over. More 

 game is wounded and left to pine away and die than 

 many have an idea of — a more cruel and unsports- 

 manlike system has never been thought of, and I 

 much regret it has its votaries. A heavy hot 

 luncheon from a ISTorweinan kitchener is now the 



o 



correct thing — heavy eating and drinking must 

 form a prominent feature in the day's programme, 

 otherwise it is not sport. 



