Is hunting near its end ? It has a local
history of just 259 years, if we take the formation of the first pack; and a sport Ao long established could not disappear. without a profound influence on the way of life in country places. If we must compare sports in their humanitarian reference (though this aspect is not under discussion here and now) shooting is, of course, vastly more cruel than hunting. I heard it said a day or two ago by a man of some fame both in the hunting field and the pheasant covert, that we were coming to the time when there would be shooting counties, or areas, and hunting counties. The two could no longer exist side by side. The double fact that most of the shooting is in the hands of syndi- cates, who may or may not have local interests, and that a greater proportion of the subscribing members of the hunts come from towns at a distance,has accentuated the divergence of interest between the two classes of sportsmen, though from a purely natural history point of view they could, as in the past, co-exist without mutual disadvantage.
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