134 GUNS 



but you should not count on this : you nmst be 

 ahead of the swiftly moving object fired at to 

 succeed in shooting. It would be possible, I 

 suppose, by mathematics to show the distance you 

 must be ahead of a moving object travelling at a 

 given pace, taking into account the distance and 

 the rate the charge travels, &c. But such precision 

 would not be of the least practical use to the 

 shooter. The shooter, when he takes a snapshot 

 at a rabbit moving swiftly in covert, does not want 

 mathematical calculations as to these matters. In 

 my experience, he swings the gun at the rabbit and 

 shoots in front of it without making any conscious 

 calculation at all as to the rate the rabbit is going 

 at, &c. He does not say to himself, '* I must shoot 

 well in front of this rabbit ; he is going very hard." 

 He, if in form, does so without consciously plan- 

 ning it. This at any rate is my idea of how the 

 thing is done. 



From the very beginning cultivate the habit of 

 shooting ahead of your game : I believe there is 

 scarcely a more important habit to acquire in 

 shooting. On some days one shoots most of the 

 rabbits in the head, or at any rate in the front 

 parts ; on other days there is that ghastly breaking 

 of hind legs, especially in the case of broadside 

 shots. On yet other days the rabbit so often does 

 not stop at all — because he is not hit. I believe 

 that when the rabbit thus goes on, one has gener- 

 ally been over or behind him if he has offered a 

 broadside shot ; and behind if he has been moving 



