158 GUNS 



before dusk by walking underneath those trees. 

 A pigeon that dashes off from the topmost boughs 

 of a towering fir is hard to hit : I should say that 

 the gunner who can bring down stone dead two 

 out of three such pigeons, may take rank as a fine 

 performer. 



Another and a favourite way of shooting wood- 

 pigeons is to crouch against a tree, round about 

 and on which, there is reason to believe, the birds 

 roost in numbers. You wait perfectly still for the 

 pigeons to come in, getting, it may be, a shot 

 presently at several clustered on a branch they 

 have alit upon. This is potting your pigeon. It 

 is of course not half so good as getting him on the 

 wing, though there was a time presumably when 

 they made a point of potting their pigeons. In a 

 book full of quaint maxims, called " Some Fruits 

 of Solitude," written by William Penn, and printed 

 first in 1693, we are told that "To Shoot well 

 Flying is well ; but to Chose it, has more of Vanity 

 than Judgment." In those times firing a gun was 

 a matter to be dwelt upon much more than it is 

 to-day. It took time to load ; it was comparatively 

 quite a weighty business. Now you just open the 

 gun at the breech, fling away the empty cartridge- 

 case — or let the extractor do it for you — slip in a 

 fresh one, snap the gun together, and you are 

 ready for the next. No wonder we go in for 

 shots which, in the cautious Quaker's view, argued 

 vanity rather than good judgment. And then, it 

 may be, they really wanted the things to cook and 



