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THE DIARY

OF

COLONEL PETER HAWKER

AUTHOR OF 'INSTRUCTIONS TO YOUNG SPORTSMEN'

1802-1853

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY SIR RALPH PAYNE-GALLWEY, BART.

IN TWO VOLUMES-VOL. I.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO

AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET

1893

[All rights reserved]

KF2456

V 74

HARVARD

COLLEGE

LIBRARY

434415

INTRODUCTION

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I HAVE GREAT PLEASURE in acceding to the request that I should write a short introductory notice of Colonel PETER HAWKER, the Author of this Diary and of the well-known Instructions to Young Sportsmen.' Colonel Hawker's position among sportsmen and writers on sport is mainly owing to the great reputation he achieved with reference to the art of killing wild fowl, and he may most justly be termed the father of wild-fowling, for he brought this sport to such perfection that his name will always suggest itself wherever duck shooting is practised in our Islands.

Although Colonel Hawker's present reputation is mainly based on his proficiency in this one branch of sport, it must not be forgotten that he was equally celebrated in his own day for his knowledge of and success in game shooting.

The immense popularity of Colonel Hawker's book Instructions to Young Sportsmen' was due to the large amount of original information it contained, and to the terseness, accuracy, and common sense with which it was written; it is in fact a work every line of which was evidently penned from actual personal experience and nothing else. It is true that 'Instructions to Young Sportsmen' may not seem original in these days, but this is because almost every writer on shooting since the first edition of the book was published has so freely borrowed from it.

There is no doubt the Colonel's book stood unrivalled for quite fifty years as a manual on guns and shooting, and on

all connected with killing game and especially wild fowl, and
in many respects its contents are, with possibly a few altera-
tions, such as the substitution of breech-loaders for muzzle-
loaders, just as useful to the present generation as they were
to the last and to the one before that, particularly in regard to
all details of coast fowling.

The steel illustrations in the later editions of Colonel
Hawker's book are splendid examples of sporting pictures,
and some of them are reproduced in this Diary. I consider
the one facing page 146 is the best. The best edition of
'Instructions to Young Sportsmen' is the ninth (1844), which
was dedicated to the Prince Consort. The tenth was brought
out ten years later, and the eleventh in 1859. The two latter,
being somewhat abridged by the Colonel's son, are not so
interesting as the last published in the Author's lifetime, i.e.
the one of 1844. The first edition was printed in 1814, the
last (the eleventh) in 1859.

This Diary only contains extracts from its original, the
whole of which if given intact would fill several more
volumes. In it the Author was in the habit of setting down
almost everything he did, thought, and said during fifty
years, adding comments on nearly every shot he fired, how
he killed, and why he missed. The Diary bears the impress
of truth and close observation from beginning to end, and
contains numerous quaint and highly original remarks very
characteristic of the Colonel. There are some very interesting
accounts of its writer's journeys to the Continent both before
and after the fall of Napoleon, and of his expeditions to the
North to shoot moor game. These latter records will doubt-
less entertain sportsmen of the present time when they read
of the Colonel's delight at bagging a few brace of grouse
at places where now hundreds are killed in one day. I
should say, after perusing this Diary, that Colonel Hawker
was the keenest and most hardworking shooter ever known;
such entries as 'breakfasted by candlelight, walked hard

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