xvi INTRODUCTION 



inaccessible snipe on a marsh devoid of covert is also 

 most pleasing to the keen sportsman. On the other 

 hand, satisfaction quite as real, if perhaps somewhat 

 more fleeting, is felt by the gunner concealed in his 

 butt, as the grouse are seen coming end on to him, or 

 when the cry "Mark over "rings out from the line of 

 beaters as the partridges rise from the stubble and make 

 straight for the guns. The excitement derivable from 

 the shooting of driven game may not be so long-lived 

 as is that experienced in some other forms of sport ; all 

 the same, it is at least as keen while it lasts. Probably 

 it is keener, for the sight of the birds streaming over- 

 head, and of others curling up in mid-air as cleanly 

 killed they tumble headlong to the ground, is of itself a 

 most fascinating spectacle, and one of which even the 

 quiescent onlooker does not readily tire. 



On those sporting estates where the rearing of game 

 is carefully attended to, extraordinarily heavy bags of 

 game have been shot within recent times. Two most 

 prominent factors in the making of heavy bags are the 

 gun and the gunner. The gun is ranked first for the 

 simple reason that without the improvements that have 

 been effected in the mechanism and ammunition of the 

 shot-gun within the memory of many living sportsmen, 

 the killing of so many hundreds of grouse, pheasants, 

 or other game in one day would be an impossibility. 

 For this work the gun must be as nearly perfect a death- 

 dealing instrument as human hands and brains can turn 

 out. It must be well adapted for the work in hand, 

 and to the individual requirements of the sportsman as 

 regards weight, fit, and so forth ; the trigger-pulls, lock- 

 work, and other mechanism must move so smoothly, 

 and its shooting prove so regular, that with suitable 



