BRIDLE and GUN: ESSAYS OF AN UNDISTINGUISHED SPORTSMAN. By J.E.F. Rawlings.

1973 1st edition. 8vo (143 x 228mm). Pp130. B/w photographs, vignette illustrations. Brown boards, upper board and spine titled in gilt.

Autobiographical essays by one who was keen on riding to hounds and shooting. Includes a certain amount of wartime reminiscence. Chapters include: A goose without toil; Eight as they ran; Red-legs and red wine; Dawn Wigeon; Three mornings; Purple letter day; Shots remembered; Ten times; A morning on the moor; Rhoda; After the frost; Hunting or shooting; A day in Strath Avon; Three mornings with decoys; A greylag at midnight; Morning flight on an evening pond; Whose geese?; Uncertainty - the spice of sport; Three and a half hours; Season's ending; Pigeon peculiarities; Rights and lefts; Memories of grouse; A November hind; Forty minutes fast; A costly pheasant; A driving day; A tough bag; Black-letter day; Retrieves; On crouching - and wigeon; Partridges in Easter Ross; The best bird of all; More retrieves; Two cock pheasants; One partridge; Magnanimity rewarded; Hand signals; Four days driving.