210 NATUBAI/ HISTOHY SKETCHES. 



CHAPTEE XII. 



MANY persons consider the shooter's life a lazy one,, 

 and are too apt to set down the whole of our " respectable 

 corps" as a body of " loafers." Don't you believe it. 

 No man can be idle who has to earn his bread first, and 

 then cook it, before he eats it ; and if any one doubts my 

 word, he had better go and try it. 



There are three or four classes of shooters out here. 

 The " swell," who now and then comes out from town 

 for a day's sport, and obtains the services of some pro- 

 fessional shot, who knows the ground, to help to fill his 

 bag. Money is no object with him, his sole aim being to 

 take home a good lot of game, which he does not forget 

 to show to his friends as his own killing. 



There is a second class, who are very good at " shoot- 

 ing over the pitcher." These are, for the most part, old 

 hands, men of sporting habits, who are generally to be 

 found at the bar of a sporting public-house, where they 

 " pitch," to any one who will stand nobblers, about the 

 lots of game they used to kill, and wind up by abusing 

 the new chum shooters, and the sporting prospects of 

 the colony at the present time, as compared to their day. 

 These men deal much in mysteries, and almost every one 



