104 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 



considering pace, wind, &c., will remain a matter of 

 natural gift. I believe the root of a great deal of bad 

 shooting is to be found here ; a trick or habit of 

 aiming at the bird. This, in the case of a moving 

 object, obviously can never be right, excepting in the 

 occasional instances here stated. 



Now the difference in result when a first-rate 

 exponent is at work is simply enormous. It is 

 wonderful to look at ; and there is nothing prettier to 

 watch than how each bird falls, crumpled up by the 

 centre of the charge, exactly at the moment you in- 

 voluntarily expect it, and looking as though it received 

 a deliberate box on the ear, knocking it completely 

 out of time. There is no appearance of haste or 

 hurry, and though the performance looks, as I say, 

 deliberate, you would be astonished to find how really 

 rapid it is, and how much oftener the professor gets 

 his gun off in a given time than the average man. 



A great deal of this effective result is due to the 

 habit or science of shooting forward of the bird by 

 calculation. The calculation is rapid, and, I think, 

 instinctive ; but it is there, just as it is with a man 

 fielding a ball or running for a catch at cricket. He 

 doesn't run or stretch out his hand to where the ball 

 is at the moment of seeing it, but to the spot where 

 it will meet his hand ; and so it should be with the 



