Sport hunting

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Again, in the case of shooting and fishing, it is strange that English gentlemen should love to do the work which should be done (if done at all) by the butcher and fishmonger. Here too, as in hunting, the skill of the sportsman lends to the sport a seeming charm, which it would not otherwise possess. Yet the essential point of the sport does not lie in this exercise of skill, but in the fact that the animal's life is at stake. Sport is none the less sport when enjoyed by the poor man, who clumsily “pots" a blackbird, than by a noble lord, who dexterously brings down a snipe or woodcock. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But men define sport differently. To those whose ambition it is to kill really wild game in a wild and savage country in which they will get but little help from any but their own right hands, to them I say, try the high solitudes round Elbruz and the ironstone ridges of Svânetia.
The best time for sport in the mountains is the end of June, July, August, and the first week in September, after which another month may be spent profitably hunting bear and boar in the chestnut forests on the Black Sea; for aurochs the hunter should be in the sylvan labyrinths at the head of the Kuban in August. ”

“ His disappointments are fewer, for he does not expect a 9-mile point or forty minutes racing across country. It is a sport for rich and poor, for tender youth and old age, and for all those who enjoy the niceties of the huntsman’s craft tested at its highest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ X The Lure of the Berry
Men have sung the praises of fishing and hunting, they have extolled the joys of boating and riding, they have dwelt at length upon the pleasures of automobiling. But there is one—sport, shall I call it?—which no one seems to have thought worth mentioning: the gentle sport of berrying.
Perhaps calling it a sport is an unfortunate beginning; it gives us too much to live up to. No, it is not a sport, though I can't think why, since it is quite as active as drop-line fishing. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ And that time-worn defence of all sport is no defence here—I mean the plea that men are improved in health and certain lofty animal qualities by the pursuit of this savage sport. For, to speak plainly, the fox is wholly unnecessary. The essentials of hunting are the hounds, who enjoy themselves, the horses, who as a rule must be admitted to do likewise, unless over-ridden, and the hunters, to whom the gratification of the hunt is the ride through brisk air, the cross-country fences, the air of adventure surrounding the run. ”

“ THE LANGUAGE OF SPORT.
"Where the——! What the——!! Who the——!!! Why the——!!!!"
[Pg 30]
COMFORTING, VERY!
Sportsman (who has mounted friend on bolting mare) shouts. "You're all right, old chap! She's never been known to refuse water, and swims like a fish!"
[Pg 31]
Old Stubbles (having pounded the swells.) "Aw—haw——! laugh away, but who be the roight side o' the fence, masters?"
[Pg 32]
CUB HUNTING
1. ”

“ This substitute, however, cannot fairly be termed sport, though it supplies excitement. It is, in fact, not very different from a steeple-chase, but produces utterly different sensations from those which are engendered when hunting the wildest of wild game in a country where man is so rarely seen that he is gazed at as an intruder, and where hunting is a practical reality and necessity as a means of subsistence, upon which the hunter depends, and not as a mere pastime to kill a few hours, or to endeavour to obtain a little excitement. ”

“ I don’t believe in shooting things just for the sake of killing them. Actual hunting in the woods for game that you live on is another thing. It’s a healthful, vigorous sport that takes one into clean surroundings and does one good.”
They chatted on, discussing this and that, till the yacht at length turned the head of the island and ran along past Bryant’s Cove. ”

“ Every field sport is here become a science. Hunting, coursing, shooting, each has its own season, its well-defined bounds, its peculiar horses, dogs, and weapons. Our horses and dogs, by long and anxious attention to the preservation of their specific characters, and to the improvement of their breed, are become pre-eminent, each in their own department. Our sporting nobility and gentry have not contented themselves with becoming thoroughly skilful in every thing relating to field diversions ”

“ But it would seem clear to the understanding of the most unbiassed person that the sport must have been more interesting in the old times, if only for the reason that hunting men did not wedge in hunting with a dozen other diversions, often in half-a-dozen different places ”

“ He says: "If you can keep the shot-gunners away, three or four miles of a well-stocked stream will afford two archers plenty of sport for a whole season. Hunting them with the bow does not drive the birds off to other haunts; but the sound of a gun soon depopulates a stream, whether any duck be killed or not. * * * * * * * *
"I do not wish to put in a special plea for archery, but I venture to say that no man or woman who cares at all for out-door sport can resist its fascination after he has once mastered its first difficulties. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As an addition to the art of entertaining, hunting is a 285 very great boon, and a hunt breakfast at the Westchester Hunting Club is as pretty a sight as possible.
In America, the sport began in Virginia in the last century, and no doubt in our great West and South it will some day become as recognized an institution as in England. We have room enough for it, too much perhaps. Shooting should become, from the Adirondacks to the Mississippi, a recognized sport, as it was once a necessity. ”

“ It is hardly possible to overrate the value of hunting as a National sport. Steeplechasing is a Grand-National sport, but it is the sport of the rich, whereas hunting is not. By judiciously dodging the Hunt Secretary, you can, in fact, hunt for nothing. Of course, people will come at me open-mouthed for this assertion, and say, "How about the keep of your horses?" To which I reply, "If you keep a carriage, hunt the carriage horse; if you don't, borrow a friend's horse for a long ride in the country, and accidentally meet the hounds." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The pheasants have been reared under a barnyard hen and fed by hand till they are as tame as fowls, and the grouse can only be persuaded to fly to the guns by a quarter-mile-long line of “drivers,” who with much shouting and waving of flags compel them to rise from the heather. The gamekeeper gets his guinea tip, and you in return get the credit of a large bag secured by his kind assistance! The force of humbug could no further go. The truth is, all this modern “sport” is a simple playing at hunting and shooting. ”

“ We have all of us seen in late years a multiplication of handbooks on hunting, shooting, and all forms of fishing, and games, both outdoor and indoor. Hunting especially has been the means of bringing into existence works that are classics. Beckford, Surtees, and Whyte-Melville are three great names, and the sport of hunting has been brought before our eyes by means of novel, treatise, and poetry. ”

“ The young men indulged in horse-racing; they frequented gambling places where dice was used; and they placed metal spurs on cocks, pheasants, and quails and fought them thus armed. Hunting was a favorite sport. It was quite fashionable for rich young men to have fine horses and, although they did ride some, yet they preferred to drive their horses to chariots.
The jugglers and acrobats were quite skilful and they were of both sexes. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Traveling in that rough country after dark is not attractive to one who is not looking for trouble. So I mounted my 15 horse and began to occupy myself with observing game signs and incidentally thought of the camp-fire and kettle.
It is interesting to notice how strangely the element of luck will enter into a sportsman’s experience. One day, after hunting faithfully from early dawn until evening without success, I concluded to vary the monotony by shooting at a mark. ”