Hunt (sport)

“ I have been asked to contribute some remarks on the humanitarian aspect of hare hunting, much having been written to the Press on its cruelty, especially in reference to the E.C.H.—a hunt that has been singled out for opprobrium by people to whom must no doubt be attributed well-meaning and humanitarian feelings, but who it seems to me fail to recognise natural laws or to take a broad-minded or unbiased view of sport in general or to realise that they have not the monopoly of humane feelings. ”

“ We do not, of course, compare the drag-hunt with the stag-hunt, the hare-hunt, or any other blood-sport, in the sense of saying that it yields equal excitement; it lacks, no doubt, the thrill of the life-and-death struggle that is going on in front of the hounds. ”

“ If these lines meet the eye of any hare-hunter, whose indignation and contempt [Pg 108] is becoming too strong for words at the levity with which I speak of his sport, let him keep cool and take comfort, for have not I, as prescribed by the ancient rules of the Cleveland Hunt Club, laid my right hand on the hunting-horn and solemnly declared myself to be “no enemy to fox-hunting and harriers.” Let me answer such an one that I, like him, regard the man who is so innocent of sport that he declares the triumph over the timid hare to be poor, as an ignorant simpleton ”

“ When out hunting alone I used to forget the sport, and sit for hours together on the trunk of a tree, with rifle in hand, buried in thought, and debating with myself: ‘Shall I go with Jemmy Kiel and his company, or shall I remain here? If I remain here there will soon be nothing left to hunt; but am I to be a hunter all my life? Have not I something more in me than to be carrying a rifle on my shoulder, day after day, and dodging about after bears, and deer, and other brute beasts?’ My vanity told me I had ”

“ There too are to be found fine hunting and shooting, which merit description and which offer good sport to mountain amateurs.
The annual hunt in the fall of 1893 in the governments of Tver and Yaroslav, with the Gatchino kennels, will give a good idea of the special sport of which I have spoken. It is imperative that these hounds go to the hunt once a year for about a month, although for the most part without their owner. ”

“ The snow must be frozen over, so as to cut the feet of the deer, which puts them in such a state of fear and pain, that the hunter can easily get within shot. I have assisted in killing twenty in a single morning in this way; and that, too, in a district where deer were not accounted plentiful.
The “drive” is the most exciting mode of hunting deer; and the one practised by those who hunt for “the sport.” This is done with hounds, and the horsemen who follow them also carry guns. In fact, there is hardly a species of hunting in America in which fire-arms are not used. ”

“ If you go out hunting, hunt. There is nothing more irritating to the real sportsman than the incessant chatter and laughter of people who take no intelligent interest in the business of hunting.
[6] When hounds run down a road, get your horse on the grass siding. Nothing is so apt to force hounds beyond the scent as the rattle of horses' feet behind them. ”

“ When a grand chase or hunt took place in the domain of some grandee, or in the extensive tracts of the desert, a retinue of huntsmen, beaters and others in his service, attended to manage the hounds, to carry the game baskets and hunting poles, to set the nets, and to make other preparations for a good day's sport. Some took a fresh supply of arrows, a spare bow, and various requisites for remedying accidents ”

“ The fact is too often overlooked that a ready substitute for the savage chase of animals may be found in the drag-hunt, a form of sport which preserves all that is valuable in the way of exercise, while getting rid of one thing only—the cruelty to the tortured stag or fox or hare. As has been pointed out in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, a paper favourable to sport:
“There is little doubt that in time the drag-hunt will become the popular hunting pastime. ”

“ But fishes do not roar; they cannot express any sound of suffering; and therefore the angler chooses to think they do not suffer, more than it is convenient to him to fancy. Now it is a poor sport that depends for 115 its existence on the want of a voice in the sufferer, and of imagination in the sportsman. ”

“ When birds lie in narrow ravines, filled with good covert, by throwing the guns forward on the brow of the ridges a hundred yards ahead of the dogs, which must be left behind with a person to hunt and restrain them, and letting the sportsmen carefully keep that distance in advance, going very gingerly and silently, sport may be had ”

“ Subjects coming under the heading of what we call Sport are not so common, and are practically limited to hunting scenes. They include hare-hunts, [1663] stag-hunts, [1664] wolf-hunts and fox-hunts, [1665] lion-hunts, [1666] and boar-hunts [1667] ; in the latter on early B.F. vases the figures often have fancy names, with a reference in some cases to the hunt of the Calydonian boar, which created the type. Some, especially B.F. vases, depict the departure of a hunter for the chase, [1668] or his return loaded with game [1669] ; or we see a party of hunters resting (all with fancy names) . ”

“ I have a warm feeling for the hare, and never quite like shooting one: she has afforded me much sport, much pleasure, and much benefit, and if I could forget the fox—and, of course, the hound and the horse—I could agree with Martial that ”

“ 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. ”

“ Extravagant without being liberal he loved show, was always ready for war, and kept an army rather than a household. An inordinate craving for sport led him to lay waste his own lands that he might have more space for hunting and hawking. He was gluttonous and sensual, became so unwieldy that he could scarcely walk, and was generally styled Hugh the Fat ”

“ 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." ”

“ Much of the charm of hunting consists in the style, grace, and neatness in which it is done. Hunting must be a pleasure to the eye; it should be picturesque and in harmony with nature. The woodland or valley [Pg 85] should echo back wild music, and the huntsman’s horn and the whip’s halloo should delight the ear and warm the blood. A badly-assorted pack, of all shapes and sizes, some of which carry a head, and others with a strain of Southern blood, as line hunters, might give more sport and kill more foxes than a better and handsomer pack of hounds. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I was hunter enough to know the signification of this sound. It was the game—bird or beast—that had fallen from a tree.
An American must have fired that shot; but who? There were only three or four of the rangers who carried the hunter-rifle—a very different weapon from the “regulation” piece—old backwoodsmen who had been indulged in their whim. It might be one of these.
Without hesitation, I headed my horse for the spot, and rode as rapidly as the underwood would permit me.
I kept on for five minutes or more without halting. ”

“ Talking of runs brings up a wealth of reminiscences, for it is a district in which the keenest interest is taken in the doings of hounds by the non-hunting fraternity, who are sportsmen to the very core. To set the runner and his friends talking hunting is like putting a match to gunpowder, and two brilliant bursts we noted down would make the fortune of a season’s sport. Finding a fox near Hyatt’s Spinney, the bitches, with tuneful chorus, drove him along into the open country of large acred fields surrounded by stone walls. ”

“ There is no sport without blood, but there is no field sport with so little bloodshed about it as hunting. When the common fate overtakes [Pg 162] the little marauder of the night, it is usually after a well-matched struggle, and his end is swift as the lightning flash. ”

“ For the principles of practice to direct him in the constantly occurring cases, which admit of no rule save that arising out of individual circumstances, he must rely upon himself. Under this general head of Hunting, I have not thought it necessary to enter upon any varieties of the chase, save those of the fox and the hare. Stag-hunting, as a rural sport, is limited to a very few districts ”

“ A HUNTER went out after game, and succeeded in catching a hare, which he was carrying home with him when he met a man on horseback, who said to him, “You have had some sport I see, sir,” and offered to buy it. ”

“ When I was asked some days previously whether I would like to have a day’s hunting got up for me in the neighbourhood of Alice, I answered with alacrity in the affirmative. Hunting, which is the easiest of all sports, has ever been an allurement to me. To hunt, as we hunt at home, it is only necessary that a man should stick on to the back of a horse,—or, failing that, that he should fall off. ”

“ 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. ”

“ STAG-HUNTING
—is one of the most rapturous and enchanting pursuits within the privilege or power of the human frame and mind to enjoy. As HUNTING, in its general sense, is known to comprise an imaginary view of different kinds under that concise term, so various remarks will be found upon each, under the heads of Chase, Fox-Hunting, {355} Harriers, and Hunting; rendering unnecessary the introduction of new, or repetition of former matter, more than what may strictly appertain to the distinct sport now before us. ”

“ But for me there is little pleasure in that kind of sport. What I enjoy most is not shooting, but hunting. The chase is the thing—the chase after a particular bird once flushed, the setting of my wits against his in the endeavor to follow up his flight. We have now and then flushed the same bird nine or ten times before we got him—and we have not always got him then. For many and deep are the crafty ways of the old partridge, and we have not yet learned them all. That is why I like partridge-hunting better than quail or woodcock, though in these you get far more and better shooting. ”

“ Of all sports hunting most engenders initiative, close observation, quick decision, and courage, qualities essential to all leaders in the several branches of the Forces of the Crown, and which were conspicuous during the late War in the cases of men who had been entered to hunting. ”

“ Otherwise how could a veteran sportsman, who in his time has shot so many thousand partridges, still feel a pleasure whenever he brings one down, and always find something new, something peculiar in the fact? How much greater and more permanent is this attraction in sports, where a thousand dangers offer themselves to the hunter, as is the case in hunting the larger animals of prey! I gratefully saluted every new day as the offerer of fresh joys: disregarding difficulties and fatigue, I constantly seized my good rifle again, and merrily followed the same routes. ”

“ In all my hunting experience I do not think I ever saw a more remarkable scene. Still, in a way, to me it was unpleasant, for I flatter myself that I am a sportsman and a battue of this sort is not sport as I understand the term. ”

“ I came to a cross road where hounds checked, and met a lady whom I asked if she had viewed my hare. She said yes, but she would rather not tell me where she had gone, as she looked on hunting as cruel. I told her I respected her feelings of humanity, and if I were of her opinion I would give up hunting. I asked her her views on shooting and whether she did not think it was cruel that so many things died from wounds. She replied, “No good sportsmen ever wound things, they always kill them dead.” How many of us, I wonder, could under this definition claim to be good sportsmen? ”