BEGINNING TO SHOOT 127 



in each case that there was risk, and I did not 

 choose to take it. After all, a good dog is 

 worth several score of rabbits, and besides there 

 is always something more than the mere financial 

 question — the value in pounds, shillings, and pence 

 of the dog — to be considered. To pepper a dog 

 is a deed to be ashamed of ; it will even make you 

 unhappy and uneasy with the gun for some time 

 afterwards, though when you shot you had no 

 means of knowing a dog was in a line with the 

 rabbit.^ You may sometimes find it practicable to 

 shoot at a rabbit though a perfect pack of dogs are 

 at its heels. In such cases you do not shoot over 

 the dogs or just in front of them, but you take the 

 rabbit as he twists off from the dogs at something 

 like a right angle from them ; these are pretty 

 shots, and, given a steady performer with the gun, 

 safe ones. 



What I have said against shooting at rabbits in 

 cover in a dangerous way of course applies equally 

 to all ground game ; it applies also to low flying 

 birds. Woodcocks occasionally fly very low indeed ; 

 pheasants, too, will fly low down the line : leave 

 these alone ; do not point at them. Let your rule 

 in this matter be of iron. Let no bet cause you to 

 relax. But, by the way, I advise you never to bet 

 about your own shooting. It is bad enough when 

 other folk bet about you. It is Mr. Rider Haggard 



1 Dogs now and then in very thick places, especially dogs which do 

 not give tongue^ get hit through no gross carelessness on the part of 

 the shooter, but such cases are happily/are. 



