BRITISH SPORT PAST AND PRESENT 



stopping to rest the butt on the ground. The rod was carried 

 in a leather socket fastened by a lug to a button sewn at a 

 convenient height on the coat. 



This innovation brought a change in the style of part- 

 ridge shooting. In ramrod days dogs dropped to the shot, 

 and nobody thought of advancing till the gun had been 

 recharged. Soon after the loading-rod came into use, the 

 second gun carried by a loader was introduced, and the pause 

 to recharge after a shot was abandoned, the advance being 

 continuous. 



Pointer and setter held their own until the appearance of 

 the breech-loader : guns on this principle had been made for 

 twenty years before they reached a stage of ^lerfection that 

 gave them claim on the shooting man's notice. The Field 

 trials in 1858-1859 demonstrated the superiority of the breech- 

 loader (pin-fire) in all respects save penetration, wherein the 

 muzzle-loader had about five per cent, the advantage. Central- 

 fire guns came into use in the 'sixties. 



Driving came into fashion about 1860. The system was 

 fiercely denounced by the old school, but it steadily gained in 

 popularity. The earliest detailed bag obtained by driving 

 I can find is that on General Hall's shooting Weston Colville, 

 near Newmarket. The party consisted of nine guns ; and five 

 days' driving, 8th to 12th January 1858 inclusive, produced a 

 bag of 2155 birds. The first day's total was the smallest, 

 327 birds, but it was blowing a hurricane : the last was the 

 heaviest, 724, shot in a high wind. In January 1868 General 

 Hall had another shoot of four days, which produced a bag 

 relatively heavier, namely 1940 birds, killed by nine guns. 

 The largest individual bag on one day was 51 J brace killed by 

 Lord Huntingfield on the 28th. Lord Huntingfield had also 

 the largest total for the four days, 162 bi-ace.^ 



An extraordinary bag was made by the late Maharajah 

 Duleep Singh at Elveden in September 1876. Shooting on 

 nine days between the 1st and 15th inclusive, he killed to his 



' Field, 1868. 



78 



