Big game hunting

“ In eighteen years’ hunting the writer has met many men who might be forgiven for believing that wild game never lies down, for whenever they have seen it, it has been on its feet, looking at them. And no wonder, for some of them would even ride up to the top of a bluff before looking to see what lay in the valley beyond. ”

“ Knowledge of the game helps all the men in the same way, and each in his own fashion picks his place; but he picks it long beforehand. The tennis-player knows where the return must come, the hunting man sees the weak place by which he means to go out at the very moment that he comes in to a field, and in like manner the big game hunter gets to where the big ga [Pg 7] me is because he has calculated beforehand where it ought to be, and experience and knowledge of the beasts’ habits, and a certain instinct which some men have, do not mislead him. ”

“ The hunting community increases with as great rapidity as that with which game decreases. Where one man hunted twenty-five years ago, a score hunt for big game to-day. Unfortunately it has become the fashion. ”

“ Gaston Phœbus's La Chasse was written just over a century before the discovery of America; "The Master of Game" some fifteen or twenty years later. The former has been reprinted many times. Mr. Baillie-Grohman in reproducing (for the first time) the latter in such beautiful form has rendered a real service to all lovers of sport, of nature, and of books—and no one can get the highest enjoyment out of sport unless he can live over again in the library the keen pleasure he experienced in the wilderness.
In modern life big-game hunting has assumed many widely varied forms. ”

“ Only legitimate methods of sport should be followed; torch hunting and the slaughter of game in deep snow or in the water are held to be unsportsmanlike.
Hunting big game in the wilderness is, above all things, a sport for a vigorous and masterful people. The rifle-bearing hunter, whether he goes on foot or on horseback, whether he voyages in a canoe or travels with a dog-sled, must be sound of body and firm of mind, and must possess energy, resolution, manliness, self-reliance, and capacity for hardy self-help. ”

“ The true sportsman is not a game-butcher. When he has shot what he wants, he may well refuse to avail himself of chances to kill, and turn to the camera as a weapon with which to bring home trophies of his abilities as a hunter. Few indeed are the localities where hunters complain of being able to kill more game than they need; yet it has been my [Pg 300] good fortune for a number of years to spend my annual vacation in a country where game is so abundant that little effort is needed to provide camp with the needed fresh meat. ”

“ Before dealing then with the game list of North America in detail, let me say to the intending sportsman, Don’t be discouraged by every evil report: go and see for yourself: if possible get a hint as to where game is likely to be and then look for a country yourself, not slavishly following your predecessors or entirely depending upon men whom perhaps you don’t know very well to present a stranger with an accurate chart of the best hunting grounds they are acquainted with, the way to which they have discovered by their own hard work. ”

“ Chairman New Hampshire State Development Commission
An explorer told me one time that the greatest sport in the world is man-hunting. "There are thrills," he said, "in hunting big game, such as lions, tigers, wild boars and elephants. But for what may be called a great thrill there is nothing like the sport of hunting a man. That is a game that calls forth all the skill one has." ”

“ We've done some hunting, fellows, in our time, but that sort of thing, with big game in prospect, calls for heavier gear. None of your repeating shotguns need apply this trip, Bluff, you understand?"
Jerry could never become wholly reconciled to the modern gun Bluff owned. He professed to be such a clean sportsman that he always believed in giving the game a chance, and declared it to be next door to murder to have six shots in hand when hunting birds. With big game, it was all right, because then a fellow's life might often be in danger. ”

“ The owner may each year shoot two or three head of his surplus big game, and his tenderfoot guests who don't know what real hunting is may also kill something, each year. But in most of the American preserves with which I am well acquainted, the gentlemanly "sport" of "hunting big game" is almost a joke. The trouble is, usually, the owner becomes so attached to his big game, and admires it so sincerely, he has not the heart to kill it himself; and he finds no joy whatever in seeing it shot down by others! ”

“ When white men take up a new country, the game, and 56especially the big game, being entirely unused to contend with the new foe, succumbs easily, and it is almost completely killed out. If any individuals survive at all, however, the succeeding generations are far more difficult to exterminate than were their ancestors, and they cling much more tenaciously to their old homes.
The game to be found in old and long-settled countries is much more wary and able to take care of itself than the game of an untrodden wilderness. It is a very difficult matter to kill a Swiss chamois ”

“ The consequences are that the voyage is confined to the open, and therefore easily navigated, waters of the western coast of Spitzbergen, or else that if good hunting grounds are visited much of the game is not seen; for no matter how keen a look-out a man may keep, he is sure to pass over game if he is not used to hunting, and does not know exactly what to look for and where to look for it. ”

“ If you wish to be successful in hunting for large tusks, it is as well to keep your men on an elephantine diet and not pamper them with dainties, or they become lazy and careless in seeking the larger game. ”

“ The chase of the great bustard presents characteristics and attractions peculiar to itself and differing from that of all other winged game. Rather it resembles the scientific pursuit of big game; for this is a sport in which the actual shot becomes of secondary importance, merely a culminating incident—the consummation of previous forethought, fieldcraft, and generalship. Success in bustard-shooting—alike with success in stalking—is usually attributable to the leader, who has planned the operation and directed the strategy, rather than to the man who may have actually killed the game. ”

“ In addition to the hunters themselves, they are assisted by thousands of expert guides, thousands of horses, thousands of dogs, hundreds of automobiles and hundreds of thousands of tents. Each big-game hunter has an experienced guide who knows the haunts and habits of the game, the best feeding grounds, the best trails, and everything else that will aid the hunter in taking the game at a disadvantage and destroying it. The big-game rifles are of the highest power, the longest range, the greatest accuracy and the best repeating mechanism that modern inventive genius can produce. ”

“ Many statements to the contrary notwithstanding, I venture to assert that, in spite of the evil doings of the ‘scallawag’ and the meat-hunter, there is still quite enough big game in many parts of the American continent to amply satisfy the desires of any reasonable big game hunter, meaning by that term one who is content to work moderately hard in an exquisite climate, free from fever and other Oriental troubles, for a few good trophies every season, and enough meat to keep his camp supplied. ”

“ Any one who is fond of the chase can test the truth of this proposition for himself, by trying how long it will take him to learn to kill a bighorn on the mountains, and how long it will take him to learn to kill white-tail deer in a dense forest, by fair still-hunting, the game being equally plenty. I have known many novices learn to equal the best old hunters, red or white, in killing mountain game; I have never met one who could begin to do as well as an Indian in the dense forest, unless brought up to it—and rarely even then. ”

“ Shooting at driven game on occasions when the day's sport includes elaborate feasts in tents on a store of good things brought in waggons or on the backs of sumpter mules, while the sport itself makes no demand upon the prowess of the so-called sportsman, is but a dismal parody upon the stern hunting life in which the man trusts to his own keen eye, stout thews, and heart of steel for success and safety in the wild warfare waged against wild nature. ”

“ To kill a bird that another man has shot at is called “wiping his eye,” and it is the chief joy of an old hunter to do this with a beginner. If you do not want to let the old hunter wipe your eye, take your time.
Learn to shoot with your head well up and with both eyes open. When the game rises, keep your eye on it and at the instant that you see it on the end of your gun barrel, fire. The greatest joy of hunting is to see the game appear to tumble off the end of your gun barrel when it is hit. ”

“ The killing of game developed into a pastime, and rules regulating its enjoyment readily grew out of this method of recreation. In other words it came to be regarded as a sport or game wherein the hunted had rights or privileges which had to be respected the same 125 as those of a contestant in any other game; the huntsman must exercise his ingenuity and sometimes his daring and endurance against the cunning and desperation of the wild beast. ”

“ The strong young hunter is often the worst. Likely enough he does the work for the work’s sake, laughs at mountain-sides, and, like a friend of our own, starts at dawn, travels all day, tells us at night of peaks at fabulous distances on which he has stood, but comes back empty-handed, simply because he is too strong, too fast, and runs over ground leaving behind him, or ‘jumping’ out of range, game which a feebler man might have seen when crawling slowly over the hillside or sitting down for a frequent rest. One really good Western sportsman we know advocates a very different system. ”

“ Amid the wild grandeur of unfrequented mountain recesses, one’s woodcraft, one’s endurance, and one’s agility are pitted against the instincts of what is probably the wariest game that exists, and one, too, which is protected by the kind offices of nature, who has made its home, as a rule, inaccessible to all but the most sure-footed. ”

“ The true hunter counts his achievement in proportion to the effort involved and the fairness of the sport.
With the rapid development of firearms, hunting tends to lose its sporting quality. The killing of game is becoming too easy; there is little triumph and less glory than in the days of yore. Game preservation demands a limitation of armament. We should do well to abandon the more powerful and accurate implements of destruction, and revert to the bow.
Here we have a weapon of beauty and romance. He who shoots with a bow, puts his life's energy into it. ”

“ To furnish an exhaustive or even adequate list of the things upon which bears feed is by no means an easy task, but it is so essential to success that a man should know where to look for his game (game always being where its food is) that this must be attempted. ”

“ The man who makes a regular business of acting as a guide, who is a good 136 hunter and who also knows how to provide a first-class outfit.
Game has greatly decreased before the advance of civilization and the wanton slaughter which took no thought of the future; the wild life which survives owes its preservation to the almost inaccessible character of the country in which it has taken refuge, and to its own cunning, which of necessity has become very acute.
To know the habitat of game and outwit its wariness requires the skill of the practiced hunter. ”

“ The desire to kill is instinctive, and, refined under civilizing influences, produces the sportsman. The mere love of killing for the sake of doing so soon palled on people who had any conception of sport. The true theory of sport, whether in playing games or in hunting, necessarily involves the idea of a contest or trial of skill wherein there is a certain element of chance. The rapid destruction of game, consequent upon the easy mastery of nature by man, led in quite early times to the establishment of game preserves and the enactment of laws for the preservation of game. ”

“ Nowadays there is a growing proportion of big-game hunters, of sportsmen, who are of the Schilling, Selous, and Shiras type. These men do work of capital value for science. The mere big-game butcher is tending to disappear as a type. ”

“ The manner of hunting at large needs no description; but, as the method of killing game within the enclosures is now totally laid aside, it may not be amiss to give the reader some idea how it was performed, and particularly when the king with the nobility were present at the sport. ”

“ Carpe diem must undoubtedly be the motto of the big game shooter of the present day, who requires genuine wild sport under the highest possible conditions. Even at present it is essential that he should obtain the fullest information as to the existing game laws in the part of the world in which he proposes to hunt, the whole of North America and practically three-fourths of Africa being governed by stringent regulations respecting the preservation of big game. ”

“ The costume of the next great amusement of the country, that of Hunting, differs at present in few essential points from what it was in the sixteenth century. The chief variations may be included in the disuse of killing game in inclosures, and in the adoption of more speed, and less fatigue and stratagem in the open chace; or in other words, it is the strength and speed of the fleet blood-horse, and not of the athletic and active huntsman, or old steady-paced hunter, that now decide the sport. ”