EIGHT BOOKS ON SPORT.'
THE eight volumes which we propose to notice below all deal with sport under varied conditions in different parts of the world. Let us begin with India. Very well worth read- ing, though it does not describe untrodden countries or unknown animals, is Jungle By-Ways in India, by Mr. E. P. Stebbing. The introduction opens with a humorous contrast between the scenes at Euston on the eye of the Twelfth and some very different scenes at an Indian railway station, where a couple of subalterns are returning from a month's hunting trip. Who shall presume to decide where the greater enjoy- ment is to be had ? Sixteen pleasant and interesting years, as lie calls them, in the Indian Forest Service have given Mr. Stebbing abundant opportunities of collecting material for a book. Copious diaries have supplied facts and observa- tions; rough sketches which are almost childish in their inartistic simplicity come from the same source. The incidents described are told us in clear and vivid style. The sketches have a character which more pretentious illustration would lack. The whole is the work of a naturalist, in the sense of an observer of Nature, who is forgiven such a slip as calling a lizard a " batrachiart." Mr. Stebbing is a sportsman too; and though there is a fair amount of slaughter described, it is clear that he often hesitates between the pleasure of killing for a trophy and refraining from killing so as to study the animal's habits. The sketches comprise reproductions of the tracks left by the best-known denizens of the jungle. Mr. Stebbing has never lost an occasion of adding a trifle to his stock of jungle lore, which the native shikari is slow to impart. He divides the present volume into three parts. The first is called "Antlers," with chapters on shooting and watching chitul, sambhur, barasingha, and hog-deer. Secondly comes "Horns," mostly concerned with bison, blackbuck, and four-horned antelope. Lastly, " Pelts " is mainly descriptive of the king of jungle sports, tiger-shooting. In this portion and in that dealing with the bison there are some capital and particularly thrilling chapters. The volume ends with some pages on leopards, sloth bears, jackals, and hyenas, and the reader of sporting tastes is sincerely sorry when the last page is reached.
We pass from the Indian jungle to Central Africa. Seruice and Sport in the Sudan, by Bimbashi Comyn, gives an exceptionally interesting picture of the impressions of an officer of the Black Watch who served four years in the Egyptian Army. Written in the familiar style of a journal or letter, it describes the daily doings of a thoughtful and critical young officer who held among other posts that of Inspector of the Dinkas in the province of Fa-shoda. Here the making of Empire in its roughest form can be studied. And very interesting it is, more especially the chapters which describe patrols through the unexplored country between the the Bahr-el-Arab and the French Congo. This district forms the Nile and Congo watershed, and the chief post, of which we hear much, is Wan. Our author, who began with the camel corps at El Obeid, ends with a tour of inspection which took him to the &lima oasis and the unexplored desert to the west of Haifa. As a brightly written account of service in the Soudan the book affords amusing reading. As an account af sport, both the naturalist and the sportsman who read the book would desire more detail. The Soudan south of Fashoda, jr ICodoc, has an abundant and extraordinary fauna. We read of giraffes in herds of five hundred to eight hundred. For five days the patrol saw herds of a hundred elephants each day. The rare white or square-lipped rhinoceros are dismissed in a line with the remark that they are pretty numerous. There is hardly a mention of the astounding bird-life on the Nile, and the writer detests entomology and insects. These are all things about which information
• (1) Jaughl By-Way.; a India. By E. P. Stebbing, IFS., F.E.G.S., F.Z.S. With oilmen-um Illustrations by the Author and others. London John Lane. 1121. Gd. net.]-12) Service and Sport in the Sudan. By I). C. E. II. Cemyn, F.R.G.S. (late of the Black Watch). Same publisher. [12s. &I. net.)— $3) Groasa and Grouse M0013. By George Malcolm, F.S.I., and Aymer Max- well. With 16 Full-page Illustrations in Colour by Charles Whymper, P.Z.S. London A. and C. Black. 17s. 6d. mt..]—(4) Lfs and Sport on the Norfolk Broads. By Oliver Cl. Ready, B.A. Illustrated. London : T. Werner Laurie. 17m. Csl. net. ;----(5) Forty Years of a Sportsiasn'o Life. By Sir Claude Champion do Crespigny, Bart. Illustrated_ London Mills and Boon. [10s. ed. net.) — (C) As Wen Creel. By H. T. Shezingham. London Methuen and Co. 15m. net.1-17) The Rook ef the Drulty. By George A. R. Dewar. 3, Edition, with Contributions by the Duke of Rutland and J. E. Booth. W.th BINH-page Illustrations in Colour. London A. and C. Black. [7m. lid. net.-) —IS) The Channel Islands of California. By Charles Frederick Holder. With nearly 150 Illustrations from Photographs and 12 Maps. London: Hodder and Stoughton. [7s. Cd. net.]
would be very welcome. On the other hand, it must not he forgotten that no man can devote his attention to every- thing. The maps are new, and have been published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. The book is illustrated with clear and well-reproduced photographs. It contains fresh and original observations which have the merit of not having been compiled by reference to the works of previous writers.
The wild sports of Scotland seem comparatively tame when one is fresh from Kordofan. Yet grouse.shooting never palls. Grouse and Grouse Moors is a new hook for sportsmen, the attractions of the work being materially increased by a number of coloured illustrations by that excellent artist Mr. Charles Whymper. The text is divided into two portions. Mr. George Afalcolm's contribution on "Moors and their Manage- ment" is disappointing, whilst Captain Aymer Maxwell's six chapters on "Shooting the Grouse" are far above the ordinary level of sporting literature. The chapters on blackgame and ptarmigan, in particular, contain some delightfully vivid and well-written descriptions of Highland rough shooting. In dis- cussing the question of driving and shooting over dogs, the reasons why driving increases the stock of birds are fairly stated. Which gives the greater pleasure must be a matter of taste. Some thoroughly useful advice is offered on the construction and disposition of butts, and the hints on driving grouse successfully show real practical knowledge. The con- ditions on each moor are, however, too diverse to lay down general rules. Of the earlier part of the volume on the management of moors little need be said, for it contains many trite statements and little definite or useful information. The chapter on the diseases of grouse, which might have been exceedingly interesting if our present knowledge on the matter had been summarised by a competent writer, is meagre in facts though verbose in form.
The two books which follow on our list may he described as autobiographies of sportsmen. We can 'well believe after reading Mr. Oliver G. Ready's Life and Sport on the No)folls Broad,s that no other boy ever had so happy and interesting a childhood. His father was rector of Waxham, and he was one of many adventurous brothers. He was little molested by lessons or other restrictions on liberty. On his ninth birthday "the Rarverand," his father, presented him with a new single-barrel muzzle-loader. Soon after he became sole. owner of a sailing boat. Needless to say that he describes . these golden days with gusto, and recounts many mischievous adventures in a style that will delight other boys. He does not purport to write for boys, but we cannot imagine a boy who would not be enchanted with this autobiography. Fishing, ' shooting, sailing, ratting, riding, and skating in that pleasant . country between the sea and Hickling are vividly described, and we have also some descriptions of old Norfolk men and women that have all but disappeared. As an ornithologist Dir. Ready is somewhat unsound, and we find it difficult to credit the statement that he took a fieldfare's nest in Norfolk ; but as a sportsman he writes with humour and zest, which many years of service in the Far East have not made dull. We have seldom read such a collection of tales and anecdotes to prove that boys will he boys.
There are, indeed, some men who remain always boys, like Sir Claude de Crespigny. In Forty Years of a Sportsman's Life Sir Claude adds another fourteen years of adventures to a book he previously published. A portion of the former work is reprinted. It is a strange chronicle of bruises and broken bones, and shows what variety of adventure may nowadays be crammed into a man's life. The book is amusing. Sir Charles is over sixty, and not a little pleased at his continued prowess, activity, and versatility. Must of the chapters treat of steeplechasing, racing, and fox-hunting ; but there is no lack of boxing, bull-fighting, and ballooning by way of variety. To have been in the Navy and the Army, to have seen the war of North and South in America and of Boer and British in South .Africa, with plenty of sport between whiles in Ireland, India, Spain, Austria, France, and Florida, give a man something to write about. Now Sir Claude expects that aeroplaning may provide him with "a new sensation." He hopes not to break his neck, for be enjoys life thoroughly, and rejoices like a youth in his exploits. He has some good-advice to give on the art. of keeping young and fit, and he loves walking in this degenerate age of mechanical
traction. • • It is reposeful to turn from steeplechasing to angling in • quiet waters. It is unnecessary to tell most fishermen that Mr. Sheringham, the author of An Open Creel, is the angling editor of the Field. The merits of the articles in that news- paper over the familiar initials "H. T. S." have long been known to careful students of contemporary angling literature. It is high praise to be able to say, as we can honestly do, that these thirty articles, revised and collected in a well-printed volume, gain when a number of them are read in succession. In the first place, Mr. Sheringham writes pleasant English, and his humour, unlike that of many fishermen, is fresh and spontaneous. In the second place, he is wonderfully varied, and never repeats himself. In manner he is meditative rather than didactic. Yet he moralises without being long-winded, and though he does not attempt to instruct, he is sufficiently technical in his details to interest the practical angler. But he never bores us with elaborate accounts of new tackle. The result is an atmosphere of fish and fishing reproduced so brightly and vividly that brother-fishermen read on, almost always interested, and sometimes with keen emotion. Trout. fishing, which is endless, fills most of the pages. As befits an all-round angler who writes a little about worm and minnow, and about perch, roach, chub, and carp, Mr. Sheringham is not a dry-fly purist. Two of the chapters contain some of the subtlest satirical observations on the pedants of the dry-fly school that have ever been written. Of salmon-fishing there is very little in the book. Of course most of the days described are good ones, and Mr. Sheringham recognises that the business of fishing is to catch fish if possible. He has "a kind of prejudice in favour of a brace of fish in the creel" which some modern anglers really seem to lack. The trout-fishing is varied enough ; and we go to the Kennet (which our author places rightly very high among rivers), the Test, lichen, Driffield Beck, the Avon, the Gloucestershire Coln, the Middlesex Coble, and Blagdon Lake without want- ing a rest. People have sometimes asked Mr. Sheringham what he thinks about when he is fishing. To this the only possible answer, says he, is—"About fishing." His book breathes the true spirit of an angler to whom fishing is an occupation so absorbing that be concentrates all his thoughts on it. We believe that other fishermen will read his book with unusual pleasure.
Another work on fishing must be noticed, though it is a new edition of a book familiar to most fly-fishers. The Book of the Dry-fly first appeared in 1897. Mr. George A. B. Dewar was one of the pioneers among the now numerous army of writers on dry-fly fishing. The present edition is much altered. There are seven pretty coloured plates of trout streams, of which four are by Mr. Wilfred Ball. The text has been revised in the light of experience. The Duke of Rutland's short introduction to the old edition stands, but Mr. J. E. Booth has added a new chapter on the dry-fly in Derbyshire. Although many dry-fly fishermen will probably disagree with some of Mr. Dewar's statements about chalk-stream trout and the art of angling for them with a dry-fly, his book has many merits, and deserves a place on the bookshelf alongside the older books of Mr. Raiford and the more recent work of Mr. Skues. Mr. Dewar's experience of South Country streams is extensive, and he can write excellently.
A third book about fishing and about the delightful islands on the Californian coast from the prolific pen of Mr. C. F. Holder must only be shortly noticed because it bears a certain sameness to his previous books. The Channel Islands of California treats chiefly of San Clemente and Santa Catalina. Parts have been published in magazines. Besides the Tuna Club and the marvellous sport afforded by the tuna and other giant fish, Mr. Holder gives a mass of pleasantly written information on the delights of the islands where the sea is always ultramarine and the weather summery. He writes of the discoveries by the Spaniards, the ancient inhabitants, the geology and zoology, the modern life, the sport, and the wonders of the deep as seen from the glass-bottomed boats in which tourists cruise about. The book is profusely illus- trated with photographs, and much of the information, of the guide-book order, would be useful to intending visitors. The accounts of the sea-angling are truly amazing. Mr. Holder has not exhausted his topic, for though there is sameness, there is little repetition, and his enthusiastic pen is unwearied.
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