BEGINNING TO SHOOT itg 



sport is truly stimulating. And many single shots 

 will in like manner have a place in your life's 

 sporting memories. 



The shots missed altogether or only half done, 

 they are as the foozled strokes at golf, only one 

 may recall them longer and with slightly more 

 regret. The memory of sport, indeed, forms no 

 small part of the joy of it. The pleasure is not 

 over when you put by the gun for the season, even 

 for the rest of your life. It is delightful to dwell 

 in less active moments on scenes and incidents in 

 past shooting-days, to exchange sporting gossip 

 and anecdote with the boon companion. Colonel 

 Hawker, the master of the old school of shooters 

 in England who wrote on their sport, must have 

 rejoiced in the writing of his sterling book, '^ In- 

 structions to Young Shooters," though he allowed 

 himself little enough of sentiment ; and in books 

 of to-day, such as Sydney Buxton's *' Fishing and 

 Shooting," the joy that lives in the sporting memory 

 must be felt by every reader. 



We were saying that there were compensations 

 for the lonely shooter, and memory recalls the fact 

 that being so often solitary made me the readier, 

 during these sporting expeditions in woods and 

 on farm lands, to improve my acquaintance with 

 Nature. You need not by any means be unobser- 

 vant of natural beauties and natural history because 

 you are a member of a shooting party, and are 

 enjoying the good fellow- and companion-ship that 

 go so well with a sport like shooting. But, with- 



