ICeaf. XIV, .Q 



PAirr HI. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

 Notes on Shooting. 



^'^oi<.' 34. Full, it is lioped, ]iy now of lore about the Ducks and 



in sl-ootln-' tluMi" luauuers and customs, the tyro has at last got what 

 from a butt, he wished for, viz., a chance to try his hand in one of the 

 liig Duck drives described in Chapter II. He may be 

 a man with a fine eye and all the other natural advantages 

 that go to make the good game-shot; if so, he is lucky, 

 and behire long he will have realised what is demanded of 

 vision, brain and hand and be doing the right thing 



o o O 



instinctively. Most people however are not so f()rtunate, 

 and only learn to do reasonably well by long and careful 

 attention and practice. Butt shooting, moreover, is, in 

 itself, not too easy. It is one thing to he able to hit birds 

 even the difficult ones, when you are standing in an easy, 

 natural position with nothing else to think about except 

 your shooting ; it is qviite another to bring Duck down 

 from inside a small enclosure, the sides of which may be 

 so higli as to prevent your covering the birds that pass 

 low down, or so low as to require you to crouch — in order 

 to keep hidden — till the last moment, so that at the time 

 of firing you are tlioroughly cramped. It is wonderful how 

 unintelligent in India often are the people on whom one 

 has to depend for tlie minor details (if the construction 

 and placing of a butt can be called a minor detail) of 

 one's shooting arrangements. This cramped position in 

 ])utt-slioo(ino- often makes one miss crossing shots at 

 which one could hardly fail under better conditions and 

 also accounts for people finding they are doing better at 

 the directly -approaching birds. To the man then just 

 beginning to think he was getting into the knack 

 of shooting, don't be discouraged, the writer would say, 

 by your large percentages of misses in these specially 

 difficult circumstances. Think it out, and you will find 

 tliat they loere. specially difficult and that even the best 

 shots, if they are friendly and honest enough to tell you, 

 also fired an immense proportion of cartridges to birds 

 bagged. " I have frequently heard discussed," says Best in 

 his "Indian Shikar Notes," <' the question of what consti- 

 tutes a good shot. I do not think that birds killed 

 per cent, of cartridges fired is any criterion. Some peo- 

 ple who are vain about their shooting take none but 

 easy shots and think that they are good marksmen. 

 If you know a man who alwavs kills more birds than 

 the average of other than men out, no matter where 



