136 GUNS 



away from you ; be a trifle beyond the rabbit that is 

 going away from you. How easy it is sagely to set 

 down these injunctions, and how hard often it is for 

 him who sets them down himself to carry them out ! 



As we have seen, you do not in shooting at 

 running or flying game aim as you do at stationary 

 objects. The sight is not used : I don't see how 

 the sighting-plate between the barrels can be used 

 either ; at any rate, I am not conscious of having 

 used it. Now, in trying an unloaded gun, and in 

 aiming with it at small birds flying — without mean- 

 ing to shoot — one has often seen people following 

 up the moving object and trying to get the sight 

 on it. This is what you must not do in real 

 shooting. You must on no account follow objects 

 up with the gun. It is a sure sign of a bungler, 

 and of a man, moreover, who should be given 

 a wide berth in field or covert. Do not get the 

 gun up till the moment has come to fire. Then 

 raise the gun rapidly and easily to the shoulder, 

 swing it in the direction required, and fire even 

 as you swing. It is, as it were, all part of one 

 movement. I am not at all sure that there is not 

 an essential similarity in this respect between the 

 correct way of using a sporting gun and a golf 

 driver or brassey. If the swing of the gun, by the 

 way, were arrested before the shot was fired, it 

 would surely be more difficult, in case of a miss 

 with the first barrel, to succeed with the second. 



I have said quite enough about this matter, and 

 will but add that^ since writing all but the last 



