SPORTING SKETCH BOOK: A SERIES OF CHARACTERISTIC PAPERS, BY THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SPORTING WRITERS OF THE DAY; ILLUSTRATED WITH ELEVEN ENGRAVINGS. EDITED BY JOHN WILLIAM CARLETON, Esq. LONDON: HOW AND PARSONS, FLEET STREET. MDCCCXLII. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF DANIEL B. FEARING WRIGHT AND 00., PRINTERS, FLEET STREET, LONDON. PREFACE. THE title of this volume so obviously conveys the purpose for which it is intended, that its appearance would scarcely have called for any introduction, were there not some points in the construction of it which I did not feel justified in leaving unnoticed. Among its contents are a few pages that have already appeared in the periodicals of this country and America. The practice of gleaning the fugitive literature of the day, and garnering its good fruit into receptacles that may secure it from premature oblivion, is now a custom established, not only by a modus, as the lawyers say, but by general sanction and approval. This, and a desire to adorn these pages with the productions of one of the most graceful and imaginative writers that ever touched and embellished sporting Need I say I speak of Mr. M. H. Perley, the "New Brunswicker?" In answer to my request that he would supply me with one of his sketches, I received an answer from him, dated "Lake Tenniscouata," that his abode, at the time, in the primeval forest, for the purpose of assigning territories to several of the Indian tribes, alone prevented his compliance with my wish. |