[Cu.vv XIV, 

 PAfiAS. a4, y5&a6.| 70 



nearly all with you. That is why it leaves such a jjleasant 

 flavour in tlie mouth hy the time that the guns have got 

 to he oiled u]) and put away till next season, and why it 

 shouUl not lie omitted from tJie season's ])rogramme. 



SOME POSITIVE ADVICE. 



It is easy enouoh to tell the young s})ortsman what 

 he should not do. The writei' proposes to do that later. 

 Is there liowever any positive advice that one can make 

 him a present of? 



Ailvanta4,n's 3.5. VivM and foreniost, the heginnei- sIkjuM buy the 



nf n i^ood y^ij.y l-)ps.|- gm^ j^y,(| ^j^Q l^j^g very ammunition tliat lie can 



^!!,'!,i*nniM?m afford. He will find it more satisfactory, if monev is 

 short, to do h^s"-" shooting with a good outfit than more 

 with a bad one. Cheap bad cartridges account for more 

 cripj)les and runners than many people realise. The price 

 of English ammunition has, tliank goodness, dropped 

 from tli(^ wai- ])iteli, and it p<ti/>' to import it of the best 

 (a niimbiM' of sjiortsmen can club together and, by order- 

 ing large quantities, secure substantial reductions), or buy 

 it from the man}' dealers out here. Your gun should not 

 only be the best your pocket can run to, but it should be 

 perfectly fitted for you by an expert, who, watching your 

 shooting, and equipped with all the appliances for the 

 purpose, is able to give you something that does not 

 knock you about by the time you have fired three or four 

 hundred rounds. This is a very different thing, mark 

 you, from loosing off a mere fifty or so. You can do that 

 without discomfort — you can even hit quite a few birds — 

 with a gun that does not quite fit, but the other is the 

 real thing, and you must have experienced it to realise 

 the pains that the badly-fitting gun can infiict. Finger 

 are chipped, arm muscles bruised and, worst of all, the 

 jaw so battered that the victim flinches from bringing it 

 down on the butt as he should for every shot. The stan- 

 dard load for a 12-bore gun taking the 2k in. (shortest) 

 case is 1 to 1| ozs. of shot and 42 or 36 grs. of Curtis 

 and Harvey's Amberite or Smokeless Diamond, as the 

 case may be. The cumulative effect of several hundred 

 raps from such a charge, calculated though it is, to pro- 

 duce the maximum power with the least shock to man 

 and gun, is not to be despised, 

 ug^ing" -"'6. In a preceding paragraph mention has been made 



versus of the all-important matters of forward allowance, or 



ForwLnl" " borrowing," as some prefer to call it. There are two 

 method! ways in which this may be given in shooting, viz., {i) 



'' swing " and (ii) " carry forward." By swinging is meant 

 keeping the gun moving with the object before, and even 

 at the 1;ime of, pressing the trigger ; by carrying forward 



