Game Animals
Whether in January or March, varying-hare hunting has a singular appeal to those who like the woods to themselves.
NELSON BRYANT
“GOING AFTER THE VARYING HARE IN VERMONT’S SNOW WOODS” IN OUTDOORS (1990)
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These days, of course, running bunnies with beagles has more to do with the hunt and the hound music than filling an empty belly, and modern rabbit hunters have definite—and differing—ideas about what makes a good dog tick.
T. EDWARD NICKENS
“THE RABBIT RUNNERS,” IN FIELD & STREAM (OCTOBER 2004)
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In a civilized and cultivated country, wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen. The excellent people who protest against all hunting, and consider sportsmen as enemies of wild life, are wholly ignorant of the fact that in reality the genuine sportsman is by all odds the most important factor in keeping wild creatures from total extermination.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER (1905)
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To my mind there is a peculiar fascination in hunting the mule-deer. By the time hunting season has arrived the buck is no longer the slinking beast of the thicket, but a bold and yet wary dweller in the uplands.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
OUTDOOR PASTIMES OF AN AMERICAN HUNTER (1905)
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For the wild animal there is no such thing as a gentle decline in peaceful old age. Its life is spent at the front, in line of battle, and as soon as its powers begin to wane in the least, its enemies become too strong for it; it falls.
ERNEST THOMPSON SETON
LIVES OF THE HUNTED (1901)
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There is one point on which I am convinced that all sportsmen—no matter whether their point of view has been a platform on a tree, the back of an elephant, or their own feet—will agree with me, and that is, that a tiger is a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage and that when he is exterminated—as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies to his support—India will be the poorer by having lost the finest of her fauna.
JIM CORBEIT
MAN-EATERS OF KUMAON (1946)
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It took me years to become at all proficient at stalking, shooting, knowing what the animals ate and where they spent the day hidden. The learning was sometimes
confused, and generally took the form of an evolution.
CHARLES FERGUS
A ROUGH-SHOOTING DOG (1991)
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There are other things much more important than game laws; but it will be a great mistake to imagine because until recently in Europe game laws have been administered in the selfish interest of one class and against the interest of the people as a whole, that here in this country, and under our institutions, they would not be beneficial to all our people. Far from game laws being in the interest of the few, they are emphatically in the interest
of the many.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
THE DEER FAMILY (1902)
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I usually point out to … youthful correspondents that in order to be a successful hunter they must know a great many things in addition to how and where to hunt. Particularly, they must know nature in all its phases, and they must be physically competent. I especially advise them to take up the study of biology and the natural sciences.
COL. TOWNSEND WHELEN
MR. RIFLEMAN (WITH BRADFORD ANGIER) (1965)
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