Bogtrotting, etc, 1 1 7 



conditions of wind and surroundings. It is 

 no doubt the consequent impossibility of 

 settling upon any fixed course of treatment 

 that is responsible for the prevalence of 

 that mysterious disease ''gun fever" more 

 amongst young snipe-shooters than any other 

 class of sportsmen, even though other kinds 

 of game may be scarcer, more valuable, and 

 the possession of them just as earnestly de- 

 sired. How well we know the symptoms! 

 On certain ''jumpy" sort of days even the 

 oldest hands are unpleasantly reminded of the 

 tremors of their sporting youth. During the 

 writer's last attack he made a careful diagnosis 

 of the malady for the purpose of devising a 

 remedy, with the surprising result that a 

 cure was instantly effected by the very effort 

 to note the symptoms ! As far as the latter 

 can be reduced to writing, the physical in- 

 dications appeared to be a clenching of the 

 jaws, a certain uncomfortable rigidity of the 

 muscles of the neck — In fact, a general feel- 

 ing of tenseness all over the -body, extending 

 even to the arms, which seem to work on 

 badly oiled hinges instead of with their 



