MANAGEMENT OF THE GUN 133 



where the moving object is or will be in less than a 

 second, and fired. The cheek is laid against the 

 stock, as it is in the case of shots at stationary 

 objects, and the eye without doubt takes a lightning 

 survey along the barrels, though it does not seek 

 the sight, and there is no thought on the part of the 

 shooter of getting that sight exactly between the 

 eye and the moving object. To me the perfect 

 union or working together of arm and eye in 

 shooting is a marvel — a mystery. We see much 

 the same partnership of course in other pursuits 

 and games — in billiards, in golf, in cricket, in 

 croquet, for instance. In some games it is hard to 

 say which is the chief, which the junior partner. 

 In dry-fly fishing the hands, wrists, and arms, I 

 suppose, constitute the senior partner ; but where 

 would that senior be without the junior ? And ah 

 how badly, when one is shooting, they do run in 

 double harness at times 1 One begins to think 

 in disgust that the partnership is dissolved for 

 good, that it were best to take out the cartridges 

 and go home. 



It is obvious that if you shoot straight at a small 

 object travelling fast, on the ground or in the air, 

 you will be liable to hit the ground or the empty 

 air rather than the moving object, which will have 

 passed the spot by the time the trigger has been 

 pulled and the charge has arrived there. The 

 charge scatters a good deal, if the distance is, say, 

 thirty or forty yards, so that the sphere of danger 

 for the object fired at is considerably enlarged ; 



