COVERT-SHOOTING 265 



book of nature is written ; and this is 

 a pity, for the pages are good reading, 

 nor has any man ever read to the end. 



It is no bad thing for some of us, who 

 pride ourselves perhaps overmuch on the 

 place of the English race in the world 

 of sport, to remember that even as sports- 

 men — in the better sense of that much 

 abused word — we are not altogether above 

 criticism. For instance the Englishman's 

 insatiate desire for slaughter has somehow 

 become quite a byword among Austrian 

 sportsmen, and bder Schiesser nach eng- 

 lischem Muster is their rendering of what 

 we should call a glutton in the shooting 

 field ; nor is it easy to say that this taunt 

 is altogether unmerited. 



Again, to quote from a recent article, 

 written, not by a journalist in search of 

 good copy for the halfpenny press, but 

 by a leading sportsman in a magazine 

 of standing for the benefit of members 

 of his own class ; his subject, the shooting 

 at a certain famous country home : — 



Here there is no Spartan ordeal of slicing cold 



