INTRODUCTION. FOR more than fifty years I have contemplated writing what I may call a handbook to the most fascinating of all British field-sports-Deer - stalking. I am ashamed to confess it, but indolence and procrastination have made me defer until to-morrow what I should have done to-day. Time has passed with railway speed, and my handbook has remained buried in my own brain. To my surprise-I should add, to my shame-a little work on this to me most interesting subject has been placed in my hands. I have been requested to state my opin ion as to whether it was worth publishing, and I have in consequence read it very carefully. It gives me no ordinary pleasure to be able to say that it is the very thing that was required, and that I am sure every old stalker will read it with delight, and every beginner with advantage. The writer, who has filled the place of a forester for many years, and in one of the best of our deer-forests, is evidently a man of great observation, and has improved the opportunities he enjoyed, of making himself thoroughly acquainted with the habits of red-deer, and the whole science of stalking them. I have said, I think, enough to incline deer-stalkers to look at this little work; and I am confident that, like myself, they will thoroughly enjoy its perusal, for they will find in almost every page something that will bring back to their |