THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
(Northern Canada), tells me that the Indians and Esquimaux of those 
parts to-day use a wall of brushwood, behind which they conceal them- 
selves, whilst others drive the caribou towards the apex of the triangle. 
Cormack, too, in his interesting notes on the now extinct Beothics of 
Newfoundland describes the long fences of timber cut down, by which they 
used to force the deer to cross the lakes at certain points, where they were 
easily butchered with bow and spear from the canoes. 
Representations of men hunting, contemporary with the Roman occupa- 
tion of Scotland, show that the bow and arrow were the weapons almost 
exclusively used in the method of taking bear, boar and deer on foot, 
whilst it is probable that with the coming of the horse, introduced by the 
Romans, or even the early Phoenicians, who were practically the first of 
traders to set foot in Britain, the use of the long spear may have been 
practised. There seems to be no evidence that the Romans hunted game 
for sport to any extent, their time being employed in getting a foothold 
amongst the savage tribes; the country being too unsafe for individuals, 
or even small parties, to roam far afield. The Danes, Saxons and Celts 
doubtless hunted for meat, just as their predecessors did, and it was not 
until the conquest of England by the Normans that a new era was inaugu- 
rated, when men did chase the deer for sport, and not necessarily for the 
sake of food. 
At the time of the landing of the Normans the greater part of England, 
Scotland and Ireland was covered with vast forests, in which the natives 
continually hunted or engaged in inter -tribal wars. During the rule of 
the Romans, and subsequently under the Saxons and Danes, certain clear- 
ings had been made in the South of England, parts of the eastern counties, 
and in a few parts of Yorkshire and Northumberland, qnd these were culti- 
vated by the peasants, composed of mixed or pure British extraction, 
who supplied their masters with the grain to make bread. Nearly all 
the hunting, however, was done by the natives, who brought the spoils 
of the chase to market at central forts or villages, for it was somewhat 
dangerous at this time for even small armed parties to proceed beyond 
certain bounds. The Normans, however, not only brought effective rule, 
owing to their iron discipline and enforcement of their authority, but a 
certain artistic sense and the amusements of a refined people. 
Their games and sports lacked the cruelty and barbarism of their 
predecessors. Bear-baiting, dog and bull fighting, etc., survived well into 
the eighteenth century and were merely a relic of ruder times, but these 
4 
