Big - Game Shooting. By Clive Phillipps-Wolley, with contribu- tions by Sir
Samuel W. Baker, W. C. Oswell, F. J. Jackson, Warburton Pike, and F. C. Salons. Vol. I. Illustrated. "The Badminton Library." (Longmans & Co.)—Some of the most noted names in the list of contributors are no more ; Sir Samuel Baker and W. Cotton Oswell have passed away, and left a great and enduring reputation as sportsmen. Oswell's reminiscences of Africa fifty years ago, are rightly included without curtailment in this volume, though they describe much concerning Living- stone and the manner of the expedition which he and Oswell conducted, and give some non-sporting but fascinating details of the life in South Africa half-a-century ago. Oswell shot with a smooth-bore rifle, and the wear and tear which this remark- able weapon evidenced, made it one of the most historically interesting weapons a hunter ever possessed. Three chapters from Oswell are devoted to two expeditions and the shooting of buck and elephant and lion. Such was the abundance of game in those days, that Oswell says one gun, well supplied with horses, could have kept eight hundred men. " Six hundred," he says, " we tried, and fattened on it." The greater part of the volume is devoted to the wants of the East African hunter and his game, and his routes and equipment, with chapters on the elephant, lion, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, buffalo, antelope, ostriches, and giraffes. These are all very good, abounding in observations, stories, and instruction, all that goes to make such writing interesting. Mr. Selous has a chapter on the South African lion, which represents the lion of fable more adequately than the lion of East Africa. Mr. Phillipps-Wolley writes of North American game all too little, for there is no hunting to touch the pursuit of the great game of Canada and the States, in the finest scenery in the world, the mountain ranges and forests of the Far West. Mr. Pike relates the expedition he made in pursuit of musk oxen. But indeed " ovibos" is not much sport, only the severity of the life in such a climate and at such a season makes it worth the while. We wish Mr. Phillipps-Wolley had given us more. Existence in the great solitudes of the Northern Continent at least compares with the jeers of the African hunter, and the bears give as much sport as the African buffalo. The volume is capitally illustrated, and is as good as any of its forerunners in the "Badminton Library." The next volume, we suppose, will be " Asiatic Big Game ; " and the tiger, we suppose, easily ranks first of all big game.
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