134 Ifctngs of tbe 1Rofc t IRffle, an& Gun 



regularly for fifty years, commence with 1802, when 

 he was sixteen. How precocious a sportsman he was 

 may be gathered from the fact that his bag for the 

 month of September in that year amounted to three 

 hundred head, and he killed his first thirteen jack- 

 snipe without a miss ! He was, indeed, ever a deadly 

 shot at snipe. In one of his best seasons he killed 

 forty in succession without a miss, and it was by no 

 means an uncommon thing with him to kill eleven 

 out of twelve. Sixty shots in succession at various 

 game without missing he chronicles in one entry in 

 his "Diaries," and seventy-seven partridges out of 

 seventy-eight in another. He must have been in- 

 comparably the best game-shot of his time, and I 

 should doubt whether he has ever been surpassed. 

 That he was a lively and frolicsome young sportsman, 

 too, is proved by many entries in his " Diaries." Here 

 is one as a specimen, under date October 3rd, 1808, 

 when his regiment was quartered at Ipswich : 



" ^rd. Went from Ipswich, with a party amounting 

 to near twenty, besides markers and beaters, to storm 

 a preserved cover belonging to a Parson Bond, because 

 he never allowed anybody a day's shooting, and had 

 man-traps and dog-guns all over his wood. I had made 

 out a regular plan of attack and line of march, but our 

 precision was frustrated by the first man we saw on 

 reaching the ground, who was the keeper ; we there- 

 fore had no time to hold a council of war, but rushed 

 into cover like a pack of foxhounds, before his face. 

 Away he went, naming every one he could, and we all 

 joined him in the hue and cry of ( Where is Parson Bond ? ' 



