WILD PIGEONS 177 



It is, perhaps, needless to add that as the killing circle 

 presented by so small a shot-charge is necessarily small, 

 the aim must be correspondingly deadly. In spring 

 and throughout summer, wood-pigeons are usually much 

 more susceptible to the allurements of the decoy than 

 they are during winter. In winter the decoys are chiefly 

 serviceable in enticing pigeons to come up within gun- 

 range, thereby enabling the shooter to obtain shots at 

 moving birds a highly sporting method of shooting, 

 this, of course. But in spring the wood-pigeons will be 

 found to alight far more readily and unsuspectingly to 

 artistically-displayed decoys, whether these are live or 

 stuffed birds, or dummies made of wood or pasteboard. 

 In March, when, often enough, bitter east winds wither 

 up the springing blades of tender young grass as though 

 they were frost-bitten, and dry up the tilled soil as if it 

 were sun-baked, the farmer is busy putting in his seeds, 

 and hungry wood-pigeons will then effect considerable 

 damage. Although hedge and tree are then as bare as 

 in mid-winter, this need not interfere with the work of 

 extermination, for the annihilator of these farm pests 

 has but to construct a shelter of branches at the foot of 

 some hedgerow tree, or, otherwise, in some suitable spot 

 along the fence, if trees are not, to obtain sport to his 

 heart's content wherever wood-pigeons are plentiful. 

 Here the little '410 bore comes in handy, and with six 

 or eight good decoys fixed up some 16 yds. or 18 yds. 

 away, the concealed sportsman will find himself able to 

 kill every pigeon settling amidst his lures. Then on 

 returning with thirty, forty, or perhaps fifty pigeons at 

 the end of his day's sport, not the least part of his satis- 

 faction will arise from the knowledge that such bag has 

 been secured for the well-nigh irreducible minimum of 



