EEFRESIIMEXT EECOMMEXDED. 27 



a little anxiety to fulfil the General's commission, or 

 from some other miaccountaLle cause, I shot so badly 

 the first two or three hours, that the keeper looked 

 surprised, and at last said, "If you don't get on better 

 with your shooting, major, I begin to think I must 

 assist you to get the twenty brace of birds." Just at this 

 time, we came near a small neat public house, the sign 

 " The good woman without a head," kept, if I recollect 

 right, by Thomas Jenkins, " home brewed ale " written 

 over the door. The keeper said to me, " Let us go in, 

 ]\Iajor, and have some bread and cheese, and try Master 

 Jenkins's tap, which I know to be of the right sort." So 

 in we went. Being rather out of spirits from having 

 shot so badly, I indulged in a copious draught, which 

 made me feel rather queer when I came into the 

 open air, and I told the keeper that I felt quite 

 certain that I should not be able to kill ten brace of 

 birds, much less twenty. "Never" fear, major, I always 

 shoot better when I have had a pint or two of jNIaster 

 Jenkins's beer." The result was this, I killed my first 

 seventeen shots, and bagged my twenty brace by four 

 o'clock, the keeper calling out every now and then when 

 my bird fell, " Well done Master Jenkins's ale ! " — and 

 the birds all around me were so plentiful, and my shoot- 

 ing so much improved, that I feel confident I could have 

 bagged ten more brace by six o'clock p.m. 



Sometimes very curious shots are made. 



I was shooting in September 1825, with the late 

 Eev. — Fisher, rector of Linton, Cambridgeshire ; at the 

 end of a lane was a stubble field, from which a large 

 covey of birds rose within shot. I fired at a bird on the 

 left (Mr. Fisher did not fire), and at that instant the 



