“TO have been able, during a matter of nearly thirty years, to follow the game trails of the great plantation region of the delta of the Santee—this has been my privilege. I have seen my homeland undergo great transformations during those years: the plantations have for the most part become waste tracts; many of the old families have died out; Nature has recaptured in her inimitable way what had been, for a few years, wrested from her. The game has held its own on these desolate plantations; and that is saying much in the modern day.
“In these chapters I have tried to give a faithful account of the observations I have made as a hunter and as a lover of Nature. I have tried to present the wildwoods of the South as I have known them since boyhood. And I have attempted to preserve the memory of certain characters which have appeared to me worthy of a place in the picturesque gallery of American woodsmen.” (Preface)