Manual of British Rural Sports

PREFACE . .' or thelast twenty years and upwards, ithas been the amusement ofmy leisuie loursto master the arcana of the several RuralSports peculiar toGreat Britain, iras many of them as came within my reach, in whichpursuit I havemet with ;reat difflculties, owing chiefly to thewant of treatises giving such minute instruc- ions as would serve my purpose; for though some were then in existence, and norehave since been published, which professed to go into the details of the special imusements they describe, yet they are too often defective in the very points .vhich they ought to dilate upon, and the author's attempt to make his theme imusing has often rendered the arrangement obscure, or elsehis want of practice n writing has prevented him from presenting his ideas in an intelligible form. The mature of the inhabitants of these isles is sufficiently prone to the enjoyment of •uralsports without any further temptation, and all that the young sportsman wants is a clear description of the habits of the animal he is pursuing, andthe propermanagement ofhis dogs, or of the peculiar implements of his sport.Having myself been retarded by this deficiency in our sporting literature, I have in the followingpages endeavoured to supply it, by giving the result ofmy experience in tlieshape of a Manual ofBritish RuralSports, embracingnot only the above-men­ tioneddetails, but also a description of everything relating to the variouskinds of racingadopted in this country, and of the out-door gamesand amusements peculiar to it. By some it maybe supposed that there are already numerous cyclopaedias, &c.,relating to these subjects; but I believe I shall only state whatis the general opinionwhen I assert, thatthere is notone which isreally sufficientto enable the young sportsman to teach himself more than one or two departments of rural sports. Neither are theremany special treatiseswhich enter fully into the subject of which they profess to treat, for though some are exceedingly interestingas far asthey go, yet they seldom embrace the whole of the details, but rather dilate upon some particular department. Among those which are especially useful are the various writings of " Nimrod" and "Scrutator" on Horses and Hounds; those of ^Ir.Scrope and Mr. Colquhoun on Deer-stalking; Messrs. Stoddart and " Ephemera" 011 FMdng ; and the Author of The Cricket Field. Colonel Hawker's book on Shooting is now becoming somewhat behind the times, in consequence of the great change in guns and in the managementof game-preserves since his day ;but his remarks on Punt-shooting are still as applicable asever to that sport, ofwhich, however,I do not profess to know much from practical experience, and, therefore, have referred my readers to his book for its details, as also I have doue 'n the case of Deer-stalldng to Mr. Scrope. In all the other sports to which I