But there remain a goodly number of books which are not merely filled with truthful information of importance, but which are also absorbingly interesting; and if a book is both truthful and interesting it is surely entitled to a place somewhere in general literature. Unfortunately, the first requisite bars out a great many hunting-books. There are not a few mighty hunters who have left long records of their achievements, and who undoubtedly did achieve a great deal, but who contrive to leave in the mind of the reader the uncomfortable suspicion, that besides their prowess with the rifle they were skilled in the use of that more archaic weapon, the long bow. “The Old Shekarry,” who wrote of Indian and African sport, was one of these. Gerard was a great lion-killer, but some of his accounts of the lives, deaths, and especially the courtships, of lions, bear much less relation to actual facts than do the novels of Dumas. Not a few of the productions of hunters of this type should be grouped under the head-lines used by the newspapers of our native land in describing something which they are perfectly sure hasn’t happened—“Important, if True.” The exactly opposite type is presented in another Frenchman, M. Foa, a really great hunter who also knows how to observe and to put down what he has observed. His two books on big game hunting in Africa have permanent value. If we were limited to the choice of one big game writer, who was merely such, and not in addition a scientific observer, we should have to choose Sir Samuel Baker, for his experiences are very wide, and we can accept without question all that he says in his books. He hunted in India, in Africa, and in North America; he killed all the chief kinds of heavy and dangerous game; and he followed them on foot and on horseback, with the rifle and the knife, and with hounds. For the same reason, if we could choose but one work, it would have to be the volumes of “Big Game Shooting,” in the Badminton Library, edited by Mr. Phillipps Wolley—himself a man who has written well of big game hunting in out-of-the-way places, from the Caucasus to the Cascades. These volumes contain pieces by many different authors; but they differ from most volumes of the kind in that all the writers are trustworthy and interesting; though the palm must be given to Oswell’s delightful account of his South African hunting. The book on the game beasts of Africa edited by Mr. Bryden is admirable in every way. [Illustration: THE NORTH ROOM AT SAGAMORE HILL ]