240 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
FIELD SPORTS IN ART, 
THE MAMMOTH HUNTER. 
THE most ancient attempt to delineate the objects of 
sport in existence is, I think, the celebrated engraving 
of a mammoth on a portion of a mammoth’s tusk. I 
call it an engraving because the figure is marked out 
with incised lines such as the engraver makes with his 
tool, and it is perfect enough to print from. If it were 
inked and properly manipulated it would lcave an-im- 
pression—an artist’s proof the most curious and extra- 
ordinary in the world, for the block was cut with flint 
instruments by the Cave-men an incredible number of 
years ago, perhaps before England was separated from 
the Continent by the sea, while the two were still con- 
nected, and it was dry land where now the Ca/ais- 
Douvres steams so steadily over the waves. But it 
would be an artist’s proof with the lights and shades re- 
versed, the lines that sketch the form of the mammoth 
would be white and the body dark, yet for all that life- 
like, since the undulating indentations that represent the 
woolly hide of the immense creature would relieve the 
ground. This picture of a prehistoric animal, drawn by 
a prehistoric artist, shows that Art arose from the chase. 
Traced to the den of primeval man, who had no 
Academy to instruct him, no Ruskin to guide, and no 
gallery to exhibit in, it appears that Art sprang from 
