GROUND GAME SHOOTING (PART ill} 421 



an article of food, though maybe not of sport for the 

 gun, they will have to be shot ; and to shoot them in 

 as humane a manner as possible should be a young 

 shooter's first object when his chance of doing so 

 occurs. 



HOW TO SHOOT HARES 



The first thing to guard against is long shots ; and 

 to realise that, though you may bowl a hare over at 

 thirty-five yards end over end as dead as mutton 

 when galloping across you broadside on, yet if a hare 

 is running from you at this distance, she is only likely 

 to be wounded. (Figs. 88 and 89, next page.) I defy 

 the most accurate marksmen, with the most deadly of 

 choke-bore guns, to make certain of killing two out of 

 three hares, at a range of thirty-five yards, if they are 

 running straight from him ; and yet how few shooters 

 hold their trigger fingers at such shots ! Forty yards 

 is the outside range at which a hare should be fired 

 at, even when the head and neck of the animal are 

 in full view ; and when this is not the case, I would 

 say do not fire at more than thirty yards, especially 

 in covert. After being fully cautioned, any boy learn- 

 ing to shoot who fires at a hare at about fifty yards 

 * to try his gun ' ought to be flogged. 



The cruel part of long shots at hares is that they 

 are not easy to miss, at all events in the open, and 

 hence very easy to wound ; so whether you are a good 



