PARTRIDGE SHOOTING 



SHOOTING, as we understand it, dates from Queen 

 Anne's time. In the year 1700 J. Sprint, of his 

 practical knowledge, had given the world a very 

 small book entitled the Experienced Fowler, from 

 whose pages we obtain a lucid idea of the methods in his day. 

 As Mr. Sprint and his contemporaries used a flint-lock gun, 

 ' with a barrel of five foot and a half, cleverly made taper,' 

 it perhaps goes without saying that a rest was necessary for its 

 efficient use, and shooting birds on the wing was a business 

 demanding some adjustment. Mr. Sprint was not wedded 

 to a five-foot six-inch barrel : he readily accords permission 

 to his readers to use a gun with one six feet long, if any might 

 think it possible to obtain better results therewith. And it is 

 evident that the more ambitious, or muscular, among the 

 brethren were not quite satisfied with that : ' Six foot,' says 

 ]Mr. Sprint, ' is a sufficient length for the barrel of any piece ; 

 all above are unmanageable and tiresome.' One wonders how 

 he would have regarded sportsmen who have an idea that a 

 gun should fit the user, come well up to the shoulder, and who 

 measure its weight in ounces. 



With such ' pieces ' our seventeenth-century ancestors took 

 the field in pairs in search of wild-fowl : and game being 

 descried, he who was to take the flying shot planted his rest 

 and levelled his gun ' three yards from the ground, a little 

 inclining to the way you see their heads stand.' Your pre- 

 parations completed, the other man fired at the birds sitting, 

 and you loosed off ' as soon as ever he . . . has pulled his 

 tricker and flashes in the pan, or at least if you are very near 

 as soon as you hear the report of his piece.' A shoulder shot 



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