164 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
RURAL SPORTS, 
OR RECOLLECTIONS OF A SPORTSMAN.— NO. I. 
“ ’Tis not that rural sports alone invite, 
But all the grateful country beams delight ; 
Here blooming health exerts her gentle reign, 
And strings the sinews of the industrious swain.” 
Rural sports have been admitted in every age. The 
good, the great and the wise, have in their turn freely en- 
joyed them, and while those which are gentlemanly and 
recreative in their tendency are to be desired and cherish- 
ed, there are others injurious to the morals of a community 
which are to be deprecated and rejected. Happily, our 
country does not sanction those sports of cruelty, which, 
in some countries, are considered national, and the pa- 
tronage of which very properly illustrates the dispositions 
of the people who encourage them. 
Without resorting to the combats of wild animals, bull 
fights, pugilism, &c., nature has abundantly supplied us 
with other means of enjoyment. Our numerous hills, and 
almost endless forests; our fertile valleys and extensive 
plains; our brooks, rivers and sea-side, teem with un- 
numbered subjects for the hunter, sportsman and angler. 
But 
“ There are who think these pastimes scarce humane, 
Yet in my mind, (and not relentless I,) 
His life is pure that wears no fouler stain.” 
To these enjoyments the natural feelings of mankind 
incline. The force of habit and education has no control 
when the individual is relieved from the restraint of 
civilized life, and placed in circumstances in which he may 
exert this principle of nature. That man inclines to the 
“ hunter state,” is contended for by many eminent writers, 
who also labour to prove, that the scattered population of 
the earth, both of man and beast, has been effected chiefly by 
this principle. The truth of this position we can in a great 
measure assent to, from what we constantly see, and what 
most feel, viz. that there is in our natures an instinctive dis- 
position towards pastural amusements, that displays its 
energies in the very r spring-time of life, as well in Chris- 
tian as in savage infancy; which matures and strengthens 
with age through successive years, commencing as soon 
as the infantile mind is alive to the beauties of rural things, 
and ending only in the days of second childhood. 
My fondness for rural sports was acquired at a very 
early age, and during that period when the city of Phila- 
delphia was scourged by the desolating influence of the 
yellow fever. My parents, like a multitude of other in- 
habitants, fled the city and located themselves on an an- 
cient, but beautiful and romantic farm, about nine miles 
distant, where, for the first time in my life, I roam- 
ed the woods and fields, while all around me appeared 
strange and invitingly beautiful; and I felt as though I had 
begun life anew. I had not then reached my seventh year, 
yet the ever changing varieties which unfolded themselves 
to my youthful mind, added new energies to a disposition 
already vivid, and being free from the restraint so neces- 
sary in a city, I was permitted to wander wherever my 
disposition led me. It was not long before the variety of 
pleasures there to be enjoyed, were eagerly sought and 
entered into with all the animation consequent to a play- 
ful child. 
The old stone mansion stood on a hill whose base was 
washed by a beautiful and rapid stream which meandered 
through woods and meadows for many miles, until it 
finally deposited its troubled waters into the bosom of the 
Delaware river. This stream gave occasion for me to ex- 
ercise my first disposition for sportiveness along its fra- 
grant banks. 
I well remember the first hour when I was led by the 
parental hand in search of the finny treasure which this 
creek contained. My father was fond of fishing and gun- 
ning, although he claimed not the title of sportsman in either, 
butit was only when idleness was forced upon him, and the 
dull monotony of a country life made his hours tedious 
and insupportable, that he would take the rod or gun, and 
go in pursuit of fish or fowl. On this first essay my im- 
plements consisted of a rod cut from an alder bush, a line 
of homespun thread, a crooked pin for a hook, and a com- 
mon cork float. Thus equipped, I no doubt felt as satisfied, 
and anticipated as much enjoyment from the resources 
before me, as any devout follower of “ honest old Isaac,” 
with the most approved and complete apparatus of modern 
times, and my bosom throbbed with as much intensity of 
feeling at the “ first nibble,” as does that of an expe- 
rienced fisherman when exerting his science to land the 
“monarch of the brook.” Such, reader, may have been 
your experience; and you will readily forgive any extrava- 
gance of feeling which a recurrence to those days of child- 
hood may excite. But I love to dwell on the scenes of 
boyhood; these were days of comparative innocency, un- 
mingled with the turmoil and disappointment consequent 
to human life. Then I wandered unconscious of future 
trouble in search of pleasure through fields and flowery 
meadows, and beside that ever murmuring brook — 
whose waters, every day, I visited, until at length 
novelty subsided, and fishing gave place to fondness for 
the gun. 
In those days shooting on the wing was of rare occur- 
rence, and the individual who could accomplish this, was, 
