266 FIELD SHOOTING. 



out again. Now, under this altered state of 

 things, it would hardly do for me to shoot against 

 any man in the world, and see who could kill 

 the most game in a week, say ; but I will even 

 now shoot against any man in the world, for a 

 reasonable number of hours on a reasonable num- 

 ber of days, and take shot about, as game 

 offers, one man to follow the shot of the other. 

 I shall now relate the methods I have finally 

 adopted. To young sportsmen what I shall ad- 

 vance will certainly be instructive and useful, and 

 1 think many old ones may gather things from it 

 which will be of service to them. One-half the 

 shots made at birds in the field are at birds which 

 fly across the shooter, presenting side shots, or go 

 quartering off from him, so that their course forms 

 an obtuse angle with the line of fire. Most of 

 the misses which occur in shooting at such birds 

 arc owing to the failure of the shooter to hold 

 forward enough so that the centre of the charge 

 will be upon the bird when the shot reaches him. 

 The centre of the flight of shot should reach the 

 line of his flight just where he will be when the 

 line of the shot intersects his line of flight, not 

 where he was when the aim was made. The fur- 

 ther the bird is from the shooter, the faster he is 



