THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
many occasions and have been as delighted as anyone to see my host 
get a good beast, because I know he has done so without taking any unfair 
advantage. 
Nor should we blame any man who reserves the last fortnight of the 
season to himself and his family, for they are large forests indeed that 
can properly carry three rifles a day, since one or two beats should always 
have a rest. The sport may be somewhat of a selfish one — and what sport 
is not so in some degree ? — but the danger of spoiling it lies in the 
dispensation of what may be termed unthoughtful hospitality. 
On the other hand, there are gilded palaces in the Highlands where 
you leave for the hill at eleven, dress for dinner at 6.30 and have to sit 
up till 2 a.m., where there is a duke in the sanctuary, a lord on the best 
beat and a commoner on the sheep -ground. An Austrian Prince, one of 
the best sportsmen in the world, who liked to take his rucksack and live for 
a week under a rough shelter of logs, just on the chance of getting a shot 
at a good stag, told me one day that the foregoing kind of entertainment 
was the only kind of deer stalking he had seen in Scotland, and that he 
did not think much of it. And could one deny it, for all the attributes of 
real hunting had vanished. Worse even than this, I fear that there are 
men of so jealous a disposition that they will not allow their guests 
to shoot a stag, even though they have been expressly asked to come for 
that purpose. I had read of such things, but scarcely believed the story 
until I once actually experienced it. 
Hill-stalking to-day has travelled far from its original traditions. 
For the most part a man does not have a ten-mile walk to his beat on 
the top of a mountain of 2,000 feet or more. Many of the newer forests 
are engineered out of their original state until the hills are often easier 
to traverse than Epping Forest. Motor-cars take the sportsman to 
the spot where the stalkers lie on their backs watching the stag 
already “ found.” Bridle paths and a hill pony save all possible ex- 
ertion until the top is reached, and then the rest of the day is like walking 
in Pall Mall. 
But what has changed the sport more than anything else is the inven- 
tion of the high-velocity small bore rifle, with its 3,000 feet muzzle velocity 
and a flat trajectory, with the new pointed bullet, up to 350 yards. With 
such a weapon even a poor shot can scarcely fail to hit the stag at 150 
yards if it is standing still, and a man is indeed a bungler that cannot 
get so near a deer as that. If we add to his great advantage a high-powered 
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