The very unexpected, perhaps unmerited, success,
of the little series of sporting scenes and characters
lately offered to the public in the “Warwick
Woodlands,” has induced me to attempt something
similar to it in general style, yet differing in this
respect, that a regular though slender narrative
of plot and story has been interwoven with the
precepts, practice, and accidents of woodcraft,
which, like its predecessor, it embodies.

I have done this in the hope of rendering it more
acceptable to readers at large, and to that fair
portion of them, in particular, to whom such topics
must be regarded for the most part as caviare.

If I have succeeded, in any degree, in showing
that my favourite field sports are not only not incompatible
with refined tastes, elegant habitudes,
and gentle manners, but most congenial to them;
and at the same time admirably calculated to produce
good feelings between the gentry of the cities
and the yeomanry of the country, I shall be well
contented with my labors; and, as they have
wiled away some to me weary hours, I may perhaps
venture to hope that others will not find them
quite barren of amusing, if not useful, qualities.