Wild Fowl Shooting 29 



Payne-Gallwey, writing of first-grade game guns for 

 game and oidinary general shooting, indicates a pat- 

 tern of 140, and says, to quote bis own words, ' ' our best 

 guns are made to do this." Further on, Sir Ralph 

 says he was much struck one day by observing the mas- 

 terly performance of a fine shot, who was pulling down 

 pheasant after pheasant as they came down -wind very 

 high up over the tree-tops without a miss. Curiosity 

 prompted the worthy baronet to examine and after- 

 wards test his friendly gun, only to find it was but an 

 open-shooting cylinder, scarcely giving the pattern of 

 140 mentioned above ! 



Finally, though at the risk of being accused of un- 

 necessary repetition, I may once more instance the 

 case of Lord Walsingham and his celebrated bag of 

 1,070 grouse in one day to his own gun alone. Here 

 are his Lordship's own and oft-repeated words : ' ' When 

 I made my bag of 1,070 grouse I used four Purdey guns, 

 cylindeis, not chokes." In the face of all this, what, I, 

 ask, becomes of the argument of those who say such 

 guns will not kill game at 40 yards ? One last example. 

 Take the game guns turned out by Purdey, Atkin, Lan- 

 caster, 01 Boss, and examine them for choke. I think 

 the result of any such examination will be to show 

 clearly there is precious little choke in any of them. 

 The statement, then, that cylinder or improved cylin- 

 der guns will not kill game at 40 yards must be dis- 

 missed as a fallacy, and there for the present we may as 

 well leave it. 



Among my many friends who go in for the choke a 

 favourite plan seems to be the letting of the game get 

 far enough away before firing. This is well enough, 

 certainly, where the surroundings admit of it, but they 

 don't always do so. Practically the only shooting that 

 permits latitude of this sort is grouse-shooting on the 

 wide, treeless, hedgeless moors, or partridge shooting 

 in a fairly open country with hedges, trees, or ditches 

 not tumbling over each other or pressing upon yourself. 

 Such open expanses are only found under certain cir- 

 cumstances — for example, the moors referred to or the 



