INTRODUCTION 5 



not visit us during the course of the year, or, at any rate, are 

 to be met with within a few hours' drive. The bays and rivers 

 attract all the migratory water-fowl, while the hills, woods, and 

 corn-lands afford shelter and food to all the native wild birds 

 and beasts. The vicinity too of the coast to the wild western 

 countries of Europe is the cause of our being often visited by 

 birds which are not strictly natives, nor regular visitors, but 

 are driven by continued east winds from the fastnesses of the 

 Swedish and Norwegian forests and mountains. 



To the collector of stuffed birds this county affords a 

 greater variety of specimens than any other district in the 

 kingdom, whilst the excellence of the climate and the variety 

 of scenery make it inferior to none as a residence for the un- 

 occupied person or the sportsman. 



Having thus described that spot of the globe which at 

 present is my resting-place, I may as well add a few Hnes to 

 enable nly reader to become acquainted with myself, and that 

 part of my belongings which will come into question in my 

 descriptions of sporting, etc. To begin with myself, I am one 

 ,of the unproductive class of the genus Homo, who, having 

 .passed a few years amidst the active turmoil of cities, and in 

 places where people do most delight to congregate, have at 

 last settled down to live a busy kind of idle life. Communing 

 much with the wild birds and beasts of our country, a hardy 

 constitution and much leisure have enabled me to visit them 

 in their own haunts, and to follow my sporting propensities 

 without fear of the penalties which are apt to follow a careless 

 exposure of oneself to cold and heat, at all hours of night and 

 day. Though by habit and repute a being strongly endowed 

 with the organ of destructiveness, I take equal delight in col- 

 lecting round me all living animals, and watching their habits 

 and instincts ; my abode is, in short, a miniature menagerie. 

 My dogs learn to respect the persons of domesticated wild 

 animals of all kinds, and my pointers live in amity with tame 

 . partridges and pheasants ; my retrievers lounge about amidst 

 my wildjfowl, and my terriers and beagles strike up friendship 

 with the animals of different kinds whose capture they have 

 assisted in, and with whose relatives they are ready to wage 

 war to the death. A common and well-kept truce exists with 

 one and all My boys, who are of the most bird-nesting age 



