380 OUTDOOR LIFE IN ENGLAND 



cruellest foe is the man whose nervous tempera- 

 ment is so highly strung as to interfere with his 

 ability to hold his gun straight. The amount of 

 suffering which a heedless or slovenly shot is 

 capable of inflicting during a day's shooting is 

 simply terrible, and if such an individual could 

 but be brought to realize this, his night's rest, 

 unless he be exceptionally hard-hearted, would be 

 somewhat disturbed. Little do such persons reflect, 

 when enjoying the comforts of the smoking-room 

 fire, how many wretched cripples are crawling about 

 in agony by reason of their want of skill or care- 

 lessness, and I cannot but think that were they to 

 foster such reflections as these, rather than put 

 them aside, they would find them wholesome aids 

 to the permanent improvement of their shooting. 



It is sad to see birds going away with their legs 

 shattered and dangling. Hares, perhaps, suffer 

 proportionately more than birds at the hands of 

 their would-be slayers ; nor do I think it any 

 exaggeration to assert that, out of every ten hares 

 killed during an ordinary day's shooting, seven of 

 them have their hind-legs broken, while of those 

 which escape many do so but to die miserably. 

 No one who is able to shoot, even tolerably, ought 

 to miss a hare in the open, always provided that 

 the distance is not unreasonable, in which case 

 it is unjustifiable to fire at it at all. Yet how 

 few there are who can refrain from letting drive 

 at a hare at sixty, or even seventy, yards ! The 

 poor animal is much more likely to be peppered 



