84 SHOOTING AND SALMON FISHING 



had shot an eagle, but as none of us had ever before handled 

 one, we were all uncertain whether it was a golden-eagle or 

 an erne ; three were in favour of the victim being the true 

 king of birds, and but one was downright certain it was 

 a sea-eagle, and to that opinion he adhered with considerable 

 warmth ; he was also an irrepressible joker, so to establish 

 his theory, and confound the rest of us, he wrote an account 

 of the exploit to the local newspaper, which wound up with 

 a flourish, stating that " Gould, Morris, and Yarrell having 

 been consulted, the bird was undoubtedly a splendid specimen 

 of the aquila sedunt sidum," and to his great joy this appeared 

 in big type. Our friend was, however, right in his contention, 

 for after all it did turn out to be a sea-eagle or erne. We 

 have at times thought the writer of " seeking the rocketer 

 in his lair" may perhaps have been a scribe as irreverent 

 as our merry friend of years gone by, and penned the article 

 by way of a joke. A rocketer, to our mind, is a bird 

 flushed some way off the gun, and which, topping tall trees, 

 comes to the shooter down wind very high up in the air. 

 This, at any rate, is, we think, the most difficult shot a 

 pheasant can offer, much more so than when the bird is 

 seen to rise from the edge of the cover, doing its best 

 to attain an altitude as it flies to the gun, for the former 

 mark will be going at a much greater pace than the latter 

 one. Also, our ideal rocketer will frequently come with 

 outstretched wings, which do not beat the air, and when 

 moving in this way we have never met anyone who could 

 make a good score, while often a bird of this kind will take 

 the fire of several guns, and pass on untouched ; and we 

 believe the only way to make even fairly good shooting at 

 birds thus flying is to take a snap-shot. The great object 

 of all pheasant preservers is to make the shooting of them 

 as difficult as possible, and to send them to their friends flying 

 high and fast. Where there are hanging covers, there should 

 be no difficulty in doing this, while if wooded hill-sides are both 



