Read it through once
Shooting was probably the favourite all-round sport of the Prince of Wales and in this he heartily embodied one more characteristic of the typical English gentleman. It has been described as a positive passion with him and as being "the love of his life." His father had been a thorough sportsman, though not a very good shot; the son became not only a thorough sportsman but perhaps the best shot in the United Kingdom. At seven years of age he was taught deer-stalking, at Oxford he frequently did a day's shooting on neighbouring estates, and, in his American and Canadian tour, a great pleasure to the young man was an occasional day's sport. At Sandringham he early mapped out his estate into a series of drives and soon combined with other famous shots to create and make popular the big _battues_ which were afterwards so well known and which came to constitute so important an event in the shooting seasons at his Norfolk home. But His Royal Highness never confined himself to shooting pheasants, hares, or rabbits. Deer-stalking and shooting grouse were favourite pursuits, and he knew no greater pleasure than to spend a day, or days, upon the moors, accompanied by friends and hosts such as the late Duke of Sutherland, his son-in-law, the Duke of Fife, Mr. Mackenzie of Kintail and Colonel Farquharson of Invercauld. Going out from Abergeldie, or Balmoral, or Mar Lodge on a stalking expedition, the Prince cared neither for exposure to bad weather, nor severe exertion, so long as he could return with a bag of several head of deer. With the German Emperor and the late Duke of Coburg he enjoyed splendid sport in the vast forests of Central Europe from time to time, and with Baron Hirsch, on his great Hungarian estates, he had hunted deer, chamois, wild boar and roebuck, as he had shot game in America, hunted tigers and elephants in India, shot crocodiles in Egypt and hunted in the forests of Ceylon or Denmark.