Throughout the pioneer stages of American history, big-game hunting was
not merely a pleasure, but a business, and often a very important and in
fact vital business. At different times many of the men who rose to
great distinction in our after history took part in it as such: men like
Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston, for instance. Moreover, aside from these
pioneers who afterward won distinction purely as statesmen or soldiers,
there were other members of the class of professional hunters--men who
never became eminent in the complex life of the old civilized regions,
who always remained hunters, and gloried in the title--who,
nevertheless, through and because of their life in the wilderness, rose
to national fame and left their mark on our history. The three most
famous instances of this class are Daniel Boone, David Crockett, and Kit
Carson: men who were renowned in every quarter of the Union for their
skill as game-hunters, Indian-fighters, and wilderness explorers, and
whose deeds are still stock themes in the floating legendary lore of
the border. They stand for all time as types of the pioneer settlers who
won our land: the bridge-builders, the road-makers, the forest-fellers,
the explorers, the land-tillers, the mighty men of their hands, who laid
the foundations of this great commonwealth.
Moreover, the class of men who follow hunting not as a business, but as
the most exhilarating and health-giving of all pastimes, has always
existed in this country from the very foundation of the republic.
Washington was himself fond of the rifle and shot-gun, and a skilled
backwoodsman; and he was also, when at his Mount Vernon home, devoted to
the chase of the gray fox with horse, horn, and hound. From that time to
this the sport-loving planters of the South have relished hunting deer,
bear, fox, and wildcat with their packs of old-fashioned hounds; while
many of the bolder spirits in the new West have always been fond of
getting time for a hunt on the great plains or in the Rockies. In the
Northeastern States there was formerly much less heed paid to, or love
felt for, the wilder kind of sports; but the feeling in their favor has
grown steadily, and indeed has never been extinct. Even in this part of
the country, many men of note have been, like Webster, devotees of the
fishing-rod, the shot-gun, or the rifle; and of late years there has
been a constantly increasing number of those who have gone back to the
old traditions of the American stock on this continent, and have taken
delight in the wild sports of the wilderness.
Yet there have been fewer books written by Americans about life in the
American wilderness and the chase of American big game than one would
suppose,--or at least fewer books which are worth reading and
preserving; for there does not exist a more dismal species of literature
than the ordinary cheap sporting volume. This paucity of good books is,
however, not unnatural. In a new country, where material needs are very
pressing, the men who do the things are apt to be more numerous than
those who can write well about them when done. This is as it should be.
It is a good thing to write books, but it is a better thing still to do
the deeds which are worth being written about. We ought to have both
classes, and highest of all comes he who belongs to both; but if we had
to choose between them, we would of course choose the doer rather than
the writer.
Nevertheless the writer's position is very important; and there is no
delusion more hopeless than the belief of many excellent people to the
effect that the man who has done most is necessarily he who can write
best. The best books are those written by the rare men who, having
actually done the things, are also capable of writing well about them
when done. It is as true of hunting-books as of those relating to
graver matters, that in very many cases he whose experiences are best
worth recording is himself wholly unable to record them. No amount of
experience and observation can supply the lack of the literary gift.
Many of the old hunters tried their hands at making books, but hardly a
volume they produced is worth preserving, save possibly as material
which some better writer may handle at a future time. Boone wrote, or
rather allowed a small pedant to write for him, a little pamphlet on his
early wanderings in Kentucky; but its only value is derived from the
fact that for certain of the events in early Kentucky history it is the
sole contemporaneous authority. The biography published by or for Davy
Crockett is somewhat better, but it is hard to say what parts of it are
authentic and what not. Of course a comparatively uneducated man may by
some rare chance possess the true literary capacity; and the worst of
all writers is the half-educated man, especially he who takes the
newspapers as models whereon to found his style; while the mere pedant
who takes his language solely from books and the school-room is but
slightly better. But, taken as a rule, it may be stated that the man who
writes well about life in the wilderness must not only have had long and
thorough acquaintance with that life, but must also have had some good
literary training.
There have been a few excellent books written by Americans upon the
wilderness life and the wilderness game of this continent. Elliott's
"South Carolina Field Sports" is a very interesting and entirely
trustworthy record of the sporting side of existence on the old Southern
plantations, and not only commemorates how the planters hunted bear,
deer, fox, and wildcat in the cane-brakes, but also gives a unique
description of harpooning the devil-fish in the warm Southern waters.
General Marcy wrote several volumes upon life on the plains before the
civil war, and in them devoted one or two chapters to different kinds of
plains game. The best book upon the plains country, however, is Colonel
Richard Irving Dodge's "Hunting Grounds of the Great West," which deals
with the chase of most kinds of plains game proper.
Judge Caton, in his "Antelope and Deer of America," gave a full account
of not only the habits and appearance, but the methods of chase and life
histories of the prongbuck, and of all the different kinds of deer found
in the United States. Dr. Allen, in his superb memoir on the bisons of
America, and Hornaday, in his book upon the extermination of that
species, have rendered similar service for the vast herds of
shaggy-maned wild cattle which have vanished with such singular and
melancholy rapidity during the lifetime of the present generation. Mr.
Van Dyke's "Still-Hunter" is a noteworthy book which, for the first
time, approaches the still-hunter and his favorite game, the deer, from
what may be called the standpoint of the scientific sportsman. It is one
of the few hunting-books which should really be studied by the beginner
because of what he can learn therefrom in reference to the hunter's
craft. The Century Co.'s magnificent volume "Sport with Gun and Rod"
contains accounts of the chase of most of the kinds of American big
game, although there are two or three notable omissions, such as the
elk, the grizzly bear, and the white goat. Lieutenant Schwatka, in his
"Nimrod in the North," has chapters on hunting the polar bear, the
musk-ox, and the arctic reindeer.
All the above hunting-books should be in the library of every American
lover of the chase. Aside from these volumes, which deal specifically
with big-game hunting, there are others touching on kindred subjects
connected with wild life and adventure in the wilderness which should
also be mentioned. Of course all the records of the early explorers are
of special and peculiar interest. Chief among the books of this sort are
the volumes containing the records of the explorations of Lewis and
Clarke; the best edition being that prepared by the ornithologist Coues,
who has himself had much experience of life in the wilder regions of the
West. Catlin's books have a special merit of their own. The faunal
natural histories, from the days of Audubon and Bachman to those of Hart
Merriam, must likewise be included; and, in addition, no lover of nature
would willingly be without the works of those masters of American
literature who have written concerning their wanderings in the
wilderness, as Parkman did in his "Oregon Trail," and Irving in his
"Tour on the Prairies"; while the volumes of Burroughs and Thoreau have
of course a unique literary value for every man who cares for outdoor
life in the woods and fields and among the mountains.