Hunter (sport)

“ 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. ”

“ It is then apparently quite easy to approach the creature at bay, though woe be to the hunter who is too sure of his prey. To be well-equipped for this method of mountain sport, the hunter must have a short sword, lance, and snow-shoes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As far as possible the true hunter, the true lover of big game and of life in the wilderness, must be ever ready to show his own power to shift for himself. The greater his dependence upon others for his sport the less he deserves to take high rank in the brotherhood of rifle, horse, and hound. There was a very attractive side to the hunting of the great mediæval lords, carried on with an elaborate equipment and stately ceremonial, especially as there was an element of danger in coming to close quarters with the quarry at bay ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ The mealy-nosed brown bear acts very much in the same manner. Hunting parties sometimes have with them a leash of trained bear-dogs, and they always close the hunt in a chase for bruin. There is in this kind of sport a dash of danger, that makes it all the more exciting.
Hunters, like poets, are born. Keenness of vision, presence of mind in case of conflict or danger, together with steadiness of nerve, are the essential characteristics of a true hunter. No practice or exercise can fully supply these qualities. ”

“ Rural Sports. Buck Hunting. Rowlandson del. Published by T. Tegg.—Buck-hunting, as a figurative sport, seems, if we may believe the [288] print, to be attended with certain difficulties. An antiquated gentleman, who in the present case seems to be the hunter, is brought up abruptly, in full view of the quarry, by a river, which he has no apparent means of crossing. The game in view, a military buck, is 'run to ground' in a summer-house, on the opposite side of the water, where, in spite of a warning-board about Man-traps, he is visibly poaching on the hunter's preserves. ”

“ To hide near a troop of these animals, watching their strange movements and taking advantage of favourable opportunities for deadly shots, which are answered by the most savage and unearthly shrieks, is another phase of sport which is spirit-stirring in the extreme. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ The balls fly round—the thong binds tight—it is a deadly weapon. The user of it rides and stalks and sees and throws and feels the same as any other hunter. Time and place, weapon and game have little to do with any differences in hunters.
Up to this 1919 hunting trip in the wilds I had always marveled at the fact that naturalists and biologists hate sportsmen. Not hunters like the Yellow Knife Indians, or the snake-eating Bushmen of Australia, or the Terra-del-Fuegians, or even the native country rabbit-hunters—but the so-called sportsmen. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So I know plenty of men, experts with the shot-gun, who honestly prefer shooting quail in the East over well-trained setters or pointers, to the hardier, manlier sports of the wilderness.
As it is with hunting, so it is with riding. The cowboy's scorn of every method of riding save his own is as profound and as ignorant as is that of the school rider, jockey, or fox-hunter. ”

“ In the early dawn of life man took up weapons against the beasts about him. With club, ax, spear, knife, and sling he protected himself or sought his game. To strike at a distance, he devised the bow. With the implements of the chase he has won his way in the world.
Today there is no need to battle with the beasts of prey and little necessity to kill wild animals for food; but still the hunting instinct persists. The love of the chase still thrills us and all the misty past echoes with the hunter's call.
In the joy of hunting is intimately woven the love of the great outdoors. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ We swam the streams together, hunted deer and small game, and at night sat under the stars by the camp fire, where in a simple way we talked of old heroes, the worlds above us, and his theories of the life to come in the land of plenty, where the bounding deer and the mighty bear met the hunter with his strong bow and swift arrows. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I eliminated a good deal of the sporting element on both the occasions on which I went out by carrying, and using, a rifle or revolver, but as neither of these weapons—through no fault of mine, however—figured seriously in the final dénouements, I shall always tell myself that for once in my life at least, I have seen real hunting—hunting in which the hunter has a legitimate right to be proud of the game he brings to earth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Over the platform bears and men went rolling and struggling, in the wild battle of life and death. Through the trees, and into the deep drift, staining the snow with their mingled blood! Here, two or three men were engaged with a single foe—there, some brave hunter stood battling alone. ”

“ In going to and from their feeding grounds they invariably follow the same track, and the sportsman takes advantage of this habit to waylay them. In hunting the roe the woods are driven by beaters, and they are shot down, as they speed along the accustomed paths, by the ambushed hunter. ”

“ His prodigious size and strength make him a formidable opponent; and his great tenacity of life often baffles the skill of the hunter, notwithstanding repeated shots of the rifle, and wounds of the hunting-knife.
One of the anecdotes related on this occasion, gave a picture of the accidents and hard shifts to which our frontier rovers are inured. A hunter, while in pursuit of a deer, fell into one of those deep funnel-shaped pits, formed on the prairies by the settling of the waters after heavy rains, and known by the name of sink-holes. ”

“ In one hunt the very number who turn out, or a tactless Master, spoil the sport, while in another the field [Pg 173] consists, in the main, of farmers who take a neighbourly delight in riding over each other’s holdings. Whenever you see a hunt where wheat and seeds are ridden over more ruthlessly than usual, you may be sure it is a farmer’s country.
There are as many ways of hunting a country as there are styles of riding a horse. The object of one huntsman is to kill foxes, of another to give his field a run, of another to see hounds work. ”

“ When we grow up to men, we have another succession of sanguinary sports; in particular hunting. I dare not attack a diversion which has such authority and custom to support it; but must have leave to be of opinion, that the agitation of that exercise, with the example and number of the chasers, not a little contribute to resist those checks, which compassion would naturally suggest in behalf of the animal pursued. Nor shall I say with monsieur Fleury, that this sport is a remain of the Gothic barbarity. ”

“ Such being the case, no wonder that the numbers of horsemen increase every day, and that the hunting field, from the select company of a few country squires and hard-riding young men, has developed into an unruly mob of people, who ride over the hounds, crush together in the gateways, and follow like a flock of sheep through the gaps and over the fences, negotiated by more skilful or courageous sportsmen. ”

“ When going out a hunting, they will put them on a horse or in a canoe, and take them into the woods to their hunting ground, in order to revive their spirits by making them enjoy the sight of a sport in which they can no longer participate. They place them in particular situations, where they are sure that the game they are in pursuit of will pass by, taking proper measures at the same time to prevent its escape, so that their aged parents and friends may, at least, as our sportsmen call it, be in at the death. ”

“ 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 hunting-field is not the place for practising the rudiments of the art. Buy a perfect hunter; no matter how blemished or how ugly, so that he has legs, eyes, and wind to carry him and his rider across the country. It is essential that one of the two should perfectly understand the business in hand. Have nothing to say to a puller, a rusher, or a kicker, even if you fancy you are competent; a colt should only be ridden by a man who is paid to risk his bones. An amateur endangers himself, his neighbours, and the pack, by attempting rough-riding. ”