118 FRANK forester's FIELD SPOKTS. 



perhaps as good a criterion as any, is the seeing the eyes of the 

 bird at which you are shooting, if it be a fowl of any size. This 

 I have heard old baymen speak of, as their test of a bird being 

 within fair shot, though were I to wait till a Plover's eyes were 

 visible to me, I should not fire a shot in a twelve month. 



In this, however, as in every thing else connected with field 

 sports, a little practice will soon give facility, and until that is 

 obtained, as good a way as any for the tyro, is to look upon his 

 bayman in tlie light of a fugleman, and implicitly to follow his 

 motions. 



GUNS FOR BAY SHOOTING. 



It is hardly to be expected that any person who is not en- 

 tirely devoted to field sports will go to the trouble and expense 

 of providing himself with a gun proper for every several kind 

 of game and mode of shooting, as, if he should do so, he can 

 scarce be completely armed without half a dozen pieces at the 

 least. For sportsmen in general, a couple of guns, one for 

 general work, and the other for fowl shooting, will be sufficient, 

 but it cannot be denied that eveiy kind of game has its peculiar 

 weight and calibre of piece, better adapted than any other to 

 do execution on it. 



Thus for summer Cock shooting, when the woods are in leaf. 

 so that it is rare to fire a shot at above a dozen to twenty paces, 

 a short, light, large-bored gun would be as effective, perhaps 

 more effective than any, and far handier in covert, and less 

 onerous in hot weather ; the same gun would be amply suffi- 

 cient for Rail shooting. For any pei'son who could afford it 

 and would take the trouble of having different guns for every 

 species of sport, for summer Cock shooting and Rail shooting, I 

 should recommend a gun not to exceed 26 inches length of 

 barrel, and 12 guage, with a weight of six and a half pounds 



