Books on Big Game 



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that lies hidden in the lonely lands through which the 

 wilderness wanderer roams and hunts game. 



But there remain a goodly number of books which are 

 not merely filled with truthful information of importance, 

 but which are also absorbingly interesting ; and if a book 

 is both truthful and interesting it is surely entitled to a 

 place somewhere in general literature. Unfortunately, 

 the first requisite bars out a great many hunting books. 

 There are not a few mighty hunters, who have left long 

 records of their achievements, and who undoubtedly did 

 achieve a great deal ; out who contrive to leave in the 

 mind of the reader the uncomfortable suspicion, that 

 beside their prowess with the rifle they were skilled in 

 the use of that more archaic weapon the long bow. 

 Gerard was a great lion killer, but some of his accounts 

 of the lives, deaths, and especially the courtships, of 

 lions, bear much less relation to actual facts than do the 

 novels of Dumas. Not a few of the productions of 

 hunters of this type should be grouped under the head- 

 lines used by the newspapers of our native land in 

 describing something which they are perfectly sure 

 hasn't happened — "Important, if True." 



If we were limited to the choice of one big game writer, 

 we should have to choose Sir Samuel Baker, for his ex- 

 periences are very wide, and we can accept without ques- 

 tion all that he says in his books. He hunted in India, 

 in Africa, and in North America ; he killed all the chief 

 kinds of heavy and dangerous game ; and he followed 

 them on foot and on horseback, with the rifle and the 

 knife, and with hounds. For the same reason if we could 

 choose but one work, it would have to be the volumes of 

 "Big Game Shooting" in the Badminton Library, edited 



335 



