SPORT AND TRAVEL.
Sport and Travel. By F. C. Selous. (Longmans and Co. 123.) —The best of the sport recorded in this entertaining volume was obtained in Asia Minor, whose furtive wild goat might elude the most ingenious and intrepid sportsman. At any rate, Mr. Selous, the most famous hunter of our time, followed him for some days without success. "These wary animals," he says on one occasion, "had been lying, R3 they always do, in such a position that they could be seen, whilst they were sure of seeing, smelling, or hear- ing any enemy that approached." Moreover, Mr. Selous does not write 83 a mere sportsman. He takes the keenest interest in the surrounding landscape, and no bird escapes his quick vision. His descriptions, again, are as vivid as enthusiasm can make them. Here, for instance, is a sketch of the goats, at one of which he managed to get a successful shot. "It has been my good fortune," he says, "to look upon many beautiful forms of animal life in their native haunts, but I do not think I was ever so impressed by the picturesque beauty of any wild animal as I was by the appearance of these two old goats, as they stood motionless from time to time, their whitish coats and broad black shoulder-stripes showing out conspicuously against the reddish background of rock and stone, and setting off to the best advantage the contours of their sturdy though sym- metrical forms, whilst their great curved horns and long flowing black beards gave them a dignity of appearance not often to be found in so comparatively small an animal." The pages which follow this characteristic sketch, and which describe the stalking of the two goats, is as exciting as a story of adventure, and we recommend Mr. Selous's book to all those of our readers who care for the picturesque and who admire the changing hazard of the chase.
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