SHOOTING. 



acquire the knack of killing snap shots, and bring 

 down a November bird the moment it tops the 

 stubble, or a rabbit popping in a furze-brake, with 

 more certainty than he was once used 'to shoot 

 a young grouse in August, or a partridge in Sep- 

 tember. 



Many "begin with very quick shooting, and kill 

 admirably well; but are often apt not to let their 

 birds fly before they put up their guns, and therefore 

 dreadfully mangle them, and, I have observed, are 

 not such every day shots as those, who attain their 

 rapid execution on a slow and good principle. 



Others potter on, in the old way, all their lives, 

 and offer to shoot with any man in England, because 

 they can cock an eye, and kill twenty slow shots 

 running ! Such adagio sportsmen take care never to 

 fire random shots, as they call all, that are the least 

 intercepted, or confined to time ; but usually point, 

 and then take down their guns a practice, that is 

 seldom admissible. 



There are few of my young readers, I dare say, 

 that have not, at some time or other, met with a man, 

 who, wishing to show off his shooting, has never 

 fired but when he was pretty sure of killing, and 

 whose pride was to be able to boast after dinner, that 

 he had bagged so many birds without having missed 

 a shot the whole morning. But before we give this 

 person credit for the name to which he aspires, let us 

 ask him whether, in so doing, he brought home as 

 much game as he ought to do ? or whether, in order 



