RABBITS, PARTRIDGES, PIGEONS i6i 



is one gunner and one ferreter. The gunner, 

 unless he is a cool and very experienced hand, 

 should always stand close to the ferreter. This 

 is the safe plan, and any plan that is not perfectly 

 safe is utterly to be condemned. Several gunners 

 and several ferreters or onlookers hanging about 

 a burrow form a party which you will do well to 

 shun, whether you carry a gun or not. The rabbit 

 often comes out at the hole where you do not 

 expect him, and he does not always, in his confu- 

 sion at finding a company waiting for him above 

 ground, make straight off from the mouth of the 

 burrow. He may dodge about, and it may be hard 

 to say which gun he belongs to. When there is 

 only one gunner, and he stands a little in front of 

 or close beside the ferreter (who, after taking the 

 ferret out of the bag, and putting it into one of the 

 holes, should step gently back and crouch behind or 

 beside the gunner^), it is all plain sailing. The 

 gunner then has a perfectly free hand. 



Sometimes the rabbit, when he is just out, stops 

 a second or two before running of¥. If the gunner 

 is within ten yards or so of the hole, he will be 

 glad to give the rabbit a few more yards' grace, for, 

 though we want to shoot our rabbits dead, we do 

 not want to spoil them for the table. There was a 

 favourite story told of an old duffer with the gun 

 — though in other ways a good fellow — in our 



^ The gunner had much better not put his gun at full-cock until this 

 has been done ; and in going from burrow to burrow he should put his 

 gun at the half-cock or " safety," or, still better, take the cartridges out. 



L 



