English readers, and especially those who have shot and fished
in Ireland, will be puzzled by this book. Are they to take it as an actual record of fact and experience, or as a story of what might have happened with a little more luck— in short, as fiction ? If we are to take it as the former, Major Long and his brother, who was his shooting companion, certainly managed to pack into two shooting seasons a suffi- ciently lively experience of Irish sport and Irish ways. For at two different lodges, besides obtaining admirable sport with salmon, grouse, snipe, duck and so on, one or both of them assisted at such inspiriting experiences as being dragged out of a black bog by a dog ; a hunchback corpse suddenly sitting up at a wake ; a rani charging a ghillie into a river ; a sow accidentally gaffed by the snout ; a cow hooked by the tail ; a right and left with a double-barrel gun which hit two snipe, a bullock and a boy ; three men peppered or otherwise accidentally shot by Major Long's brother, and a mixed bag of 140 head, weighing some 150 lbs., carried home by two keepers, one of whom had been well peppered earlier in the day. This is a pretty good achievement for a few months even in Ireland, and if it is to be taken as a record of fact, we do not know whether we should most congratulate Major Long on his shooting or on his good fortune in not being shot by his brother. One point in any case we may take seriously, and that is the title of the book. Major Long writes of " Sport of Yesterday." With shooting lodges burnt, rivers dynamited, and railways blown up, how can there be any sport to-day or to-morrow ?
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