I50 GUNS 



a good many rabbits, some pheasants, and occa- 

 sionally a woodcock. I remember missing a very 

 fast quail which rose in some rough standing barley, 

 and a twisting jack-snipe which was also in standing 

 corn ; and I recollect dropping a partridge dead at 

 just eighty yards distance — the longest shot I have 

 ever made or am ever likely to make. 



But this cock pheasant was a cruel humiliation, 

 though there was no one near to witness it. He 

 rose at about twenty yards distance out of a rough 

 spot, and I had two barrels without touching a 

 feather. Perhaps, if I had shut both eyes, I should 

 have got him with the first barrel. He was a per- 

 fect haystack of a shot. 



On another occasion, at home in the woods, 

 my spaniels put up a woodcock which flew straight 

 away slowly. Two barrels this time again, and 

 nothing happened. My only comfort is that much 

 better men than I am, now and then cannot touch 

 these absurdly easy shots. It is comforting to 

 know that the swells themselves fail sometimes ; 

 that they miss their two-feet putts on the green, 

 that they try the simplest *^ Whitechapel shot" on 

 the billiard-table and ignominiously fail, that they 

 fire two barrels at an old hedgerow cock pheas- 

 ant, and that he sails joyfully away from them. 

 Then there is a brotherly feeling between us and 

 the swell performer : it is the touch of Nature that 

 makes the whole world kin. 



Give, then, the pheasant, put up by the dogs 

 in covert, time ; or, to put it in another way, give 



