What does Rainsford learn about hunting that he did not understand at the beginning of the story?"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell

Sanger Rainsford learns two things from his
experiences:

1.  In the exposition of "The Most Dangerous
Game," Rainsford scoffs at his hunting companion, Whitney, who mentions that hunting in
the Amazon is only "good sport," for the hunter and not for the jaguar, telling Whitney,
"Who cares how a jaguar feels?"  However, in the rising action of Connell's narrative,
Rainsford becomes the mouse as the general is the cat:  "Then it was that Rainsford
knewthe full meaning of terror," a terror the jaguar
feels. 

2.  Besides learning what it means to be "an
animal at bay," Rainsford comes to apprehend something very surprising about himself. 
Whereas he has repudiated as murder General Zaroff's hunting of the "ideal animal" whom
he finds challenging because of the ability to reason, after he is pursued like a beast
of prey, Rainsford outsmarts his predator and arrives in the general's bedroom.  There,
he battles Zaroff to the death: 

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 He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford
decided.

Now, Sanger
Rainsford is guilty of what he has denounced in General Zaroff.  Now, Zaroff's earlier
words ring true:

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"I refuse to believe that so modern and civilized
a young man as you seem to be harbors romantic ideas about the value of human
life...."

Rainsford learns
that he no longer harbors those romantic ideas as he apprehends that he, like
Zaroff, has acquired pleasure and excitement from his "most dangerous
game."