SHOOTING AS IT WAS, AND AS IT IS. 15 



undoubtedly mine, of firing, to give them the 

 coveted shot, intensely amused at times when 

 they have missed the bird after all. They 

 often miss, when my gun is aimed, from their 

 own haste to be the first to fire ; and it has 

 very frequently liappened, that if we have fired 

 together, particularly in cases where my neighbour 

 has been an uncertain shot, and that when the 

 bird was dead, he or they have turned to ask ^^if 

 I had let off my gun," I have simply shaken my head 

 and abstained from loading, to give them, at least, 

 all the pleasure in my power to afford, in permitting 

 them to think they had the shot all to themselves. 



One thing in these fast days strikes me as very 

 strange, it is, that so few shooters — I can't call 

 them sportsmen — are added to the dead-bag of the 

 game. I constantly see men fire in covers or in 

 hedgerows, right into spots wherein any human 

 creature might he, but into which they had seen 

 no human creature go ; a boy or a girl, most likely 

 both, may be there accidentally, or as ^^ stops," 

 or a brother gunner may have got there, or a 

 beater wandered from the line. None of these 

 possible considerations, however, intervene between 

 the eager, covetous eye of the gunner and the 



