0,2 SHOOTING UNDER NOVEL CONDITIONS. 



show that until the eye has become trained to recognise 

 animals under these novel conditions, this difficulty 

 is very real and by no means imaginary. If, on the 

 other hand, it be in the midst of a wide plain, why 

 then all the novice's good shooting goes for nothing, 

 and he finds that he cannot hit a haystack (as the com- 

 mon expression goes when a man misses everything), until 

 he becomes accustomed to judge distances upon the great 

 grassy sea, and gets used to the wholly different state 

 of the atmosphere there, to that generally experienced 

 in our dim climates. The glitter of the solar rays and 

 their unwonted lustre so disconcerts his aim, that the 

 new combination of circumstances literally, and not at 

 all metaphorically speaking, put him out completely, 

 and for some little time good shooting is unattainable. 

 Then again the extent of country is so vast, the move- 

 ments, haunts, and habits of the game so uncertain, 

 and the conditions under which it has to be looked 

 for, so different to what he has been accustomed to at 

 home, that the new comer is at first completely baffled 

 in his calculations, and finds his home experiences of 

 little service in teaching him to find and work his 

 way up to within shooting distance of the wild game 

 of the wilderness. " It is only when left to ourselves" 

 {says Captain John Palliser, in his " Solitary Hunter on 

 the North American Prairies ") " that we gentlemen of 

 England feel how very little we are in the habit of 

 doing for ourselves, and how helpless we are rendered 

 by our civilization." * 



If he has never had any experience in guiding his 

 course through a wild country, for one thing the new 



* Published in 1856. This charming little collection of hunting 

 sketches is now out of print, and very scarce. 



