The hunt is a privileged institution in England, and can make gaps in hedges and break down walls with impunity. The farmer never complains if his wheat and turnip fields are ruined by the sport, nor does a lady complain if her flower garden and ornamental arbour be laid in ruins. The wily fox who has made such a skilful run must be followed at any cost.
Shooting is, however, the favourite sport of all Englishmen. Both pheasants and partridges are first carefully reared; the eggs generally purchased in large quantities, hatched by hens, and the birds fed through the summer with meal and other appropriate food. The gamekeepers take the greatest pride in the rearing of these birds. The pheasant is to the Englishman what the ibis was to the Egyptian.
They are let loose in the woods only when nearly full-grown. When the covers are full, and a good bag is to be expected, the first of October is a regular feast-day; a large party is asked, and a variety of costumes makes the scene picturesque. Red or purple stockings, knickerbockers of stout cloth or velveteen, a shooting-jacket of rough heavy material, and stout shoes make up the costume. The ladies collect after breakfast to see the party start out, a rendezvous is agreed upon, and luncheon or tea brings them together at either two or five o'clock, under a sheltering hedge on the side of a wood. The materials for an ample meal are brought to the appointed place, and a gay picnic ensues.
Though shooting is a sport in which more real personal work is done by those who join in it, and in which skill is a real ingredient, still it is neither so characteristic nor so picturesque as fox-hunting. There, a firm seat in the saddle, a good horse, and a determination to ride straight across country, are all that is needed for the majority of the field. In shooting much patience is required, besides accuracy of aim, and a judicious knowledge of when and how to shoot.
When we consider that hunting is the fashion which Americans are trying to follow, in a country without foxes, we must concede that success must be the result of considerable hard study. The fox is an anise-seed bag, but stone walls and high rail fences often make a stiffer country to ride over than any to be found abroad. In England there are no fences.
As an addition to the art of entertaining, hunting is a 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. If Americans could devote five months of the year to sport, as the Englishmen do, they might rival Great Britain. Unfortunately, Americans are bringing down other kinds of game. We cannot help thinking, however, that shooting a buck in the Adirondacks is a more manly sport than shooting one in England.
No one who has ever had the privilege will forget his first drive through the delights of an English park. The herds of fallow deer that haunt the ferny glades beneath the old oaks and beeches, are kept both for show and for the table; for park-fed venison is a more delicious morsel than the flesh of the Scotch red deer, that runs wild on the moor. White, brown, and mottled, with branching antlers which serve admirably for offensive and defensive weapons, the deer browse in groups; the does and fawns generally keeping apart from the more lordly bucks. The park-keeper knows them all, and when one is shot, the hides, hoofs, and antlers become his perquisites.
The method of shooting a buck is, however, this: The keeper's assistant drives the herd in a certain direction previously agreed upon. The sight is a very pretty one. The keeper stations himself, rifle in hand, in the fork of some convenient tree along the route. He takes aim at the intended victim, and at the ominous report the scared herd scampers away faster than ever, leaving their comrade to the knives of the keeper. It is very much like going out to shoot a cow. There is occasionally an attempt to renew the scenes of Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest, and the hounds are let out, but it is a sham after all, as they are trained not to kill the deer. The stag in this instance is given a start, being carried bound in a cart to a certain point, whence he is released and the chase commences. Thus the same stag may be hunted a number of times and be none the worse for it,—which is not the way they do it in the Adirondacks.
American venison is a higher flavoured meat than English, and should be only partly roasted before the fire, then cut in slices half-raw, placed on a chafing-dish with jelly and gravy, and warmed and cooked before the guest to ensure perfection.