i66 GUNS 



the line of fire. Rabbits dislodged from these 

 bushes clearly recognise their perilous situation, 

 and, as the keeper says, they are ^* mighty quick." 

 If you are not in good form, this sort of rabbit- 

 shooting " finds you out " as soon as any I 

 know. 



It is pretty sport. On a certain wild, beautiful 

 green spot, several hundred acres in extent, and 

 largely sprinkled over with bushes such as these, I 

 generally have an hour or so of this kind of shoot- 

 ing on several days each winter. Sometimes I work 

 these bushes alone, with the aid of a dog or two, 

 sometimes with the gamekeeper and with another 

 gun ; and I always regard it as the cream of that 

 particular day's sport among the rabbits, if any are 

 found in the bushes. From long experience we 

 all come to gauge fairly well the likelihood of this 

 or that bush holding a rabbit to-day, even before 

 the dogs reach it. And in these several bushes 

 — close to the denser covert — in the case of 

 which one knows exactly where to stand, the 

 rabbits, however much hustled, always retaining 

 enough presence of mind to make for a thick row 

 of blackthorn, &c., close at hand. One may take 

 these rabbits at any distance between, say, fifteen 

 and forty-five yards. Now and then a second 

 barrel is fired at a rabbit distant fifty yards or 

 a little more than that, but not often with effect. 

 During the past season I brought off a long broad- 

 side shot with my first barrel at a rabbit in the open 

 among these bushes ; the distance was not paced 



