1/4 THE GUN: AFIELD AND AFLOAT 



caution in moving from place to place. Wood-pigeons, 

 too, are much more restless in windy than in calm 

 weather, and are then usually on the move from day- 

 dawn till dusk. Then is the opportunity to make a 

 respectable bag of pigeons, and at such times gunners 

 who are well acquainted with the difficulties of the sport 

 take a peculiar pleasure in bringing down these truly 

 wild and strong-flying fowl. On these occasions the 

 shooter who, whilst standing in, say, a wood of tall firs, 

 or perhaps of oaks, can account for fifty or more wood- 

 pigeons, must be put down as no mean performer with 

 the gun. His bag will, in all probability, be a mixed 

 one, inasmuch as it may be composed of ringdoves and 

 stockdoves, and he who has had much experience in 

 the ways and manner of flight of these wood-fowl is fully 

 alive to the fact that the latter are much less stable objects 

 at which to take aim than their larger and less nimble 

 brethren, the ringdoves. That sportsman must surely 

 be difficult to please who returns not home thoroughly 

 satisfied after making a bag of fifty wood-pigeons amidst 

 such surroundings, for the getting together of a bag of 

 this character calls for as great a display of skill as the 

 killing thrice that number of grouse, pheasants, or 

 partridges under the usual conditions of their pursuit. 

 The largest bags of wood-pigeons of which there is 

 sufficiently authentic record are those made by Lord 

 Walsingham, who on four occasions has succeeded in 

 bringing down to his own gun upwards of one hundred 

 wood-pigeons in one day. The following series are so 

 remarkable that perhaps I may be excused if I again 

 place them on record 



