In making this selection from my dear father's "Sporting Notions" in the Referee, I have tried to steer clear as far as possible of controversial matter, and particularly of all that might possibly, even now, give the slightest pain. Fearlessly outspoken though "Geraint" was, and continually called upon to deal with vexed questions, his work contained so little which could ever have hurt anyone's feelings that the latter aim was simple enough. But in articles that necessarily involve reviews of and judgments on complicated issues, it is not always possible to avoid a controversial attitude; if only that Martin Cobbett's scrupulous fairness led him to consider in detail all arguments put forward by those to whom he was opposed.