FOR YOUNG SHOOTERS 109 



the rabbit's dead, and Loder's score is increased 

 by one. The beggar doesn't even trouble to 

 put his gun to his shoulder always. It's not 

 right. 



Another day I remember, a day when all 

 the birds, moved by the diabolical impulse that 

 sometimes afflicts them, would insist on going 

 wrong. If we stood forward, with all proper regard 

 for wind and every other circumstance, streams 

 of feathered demons kept whirring back where 

 Johnson, the sporting solicitor, missed them with a 

 genial regularity that nothing could disturb. If 

 we left our best guns back, as we did eventually in 

 desperation, Johnson, who was placed forward, 

 again stood under a canopy of pheasants, and shot, 

 with brilliant success, into the gaps. The host was 

 furious, the keeper was in sombre despair, the good 

 shots were depressed, only Johnson was jubilant. 

 On &uch occasions the only theory which is accepted 

 as explaining the catastrophe is one that imputes a 

 malignant cunning to the birds. This is the kind 

 of conversation you will hear. 



Host (at the end of the beat). Done again, by 

 the living Jingo ! Did you ever see such infernal 

 birds? I've shot this wood on the same plan for 



