PARTRIDGE DRIVING 177 



extremely dangerous for his neighbours. This being 

 so, it is most important for the shooter never by 

 any possible chance to follow a bird round with 

 gun to shoulder, as I have seen some men do 

 who ought to have known better ; also, unless the 

 bird shot at is quite high enough to be perfectly 

 safe, on no occasion shoot at it except well in 

 front of your butt, or else well behind the line of 

 guns. In turning round to shoot at birds that 

 have passed the butts, your gun should not be put 

 up to the shoulder, as I said before, until you have 

 faced about in the butt or whatever place of hiding 

 you may be in. Careful observance of these rules 

 may help to prevent accidents which have so fre- 

 quently occurred in driving, by which many a 

 man has lost an eye. Another most important 

 thing is not to fire shots at anything between drives, 

 as many nasty accidents have happened by people 

 shooting whilst going from one set of stands to 

 another, for then men are often out of line taking 

 what they think is a short cut. Another really sound 

 piece of advice is, take out cartridges when getting 

 over a fence, however small, or across a ditch. In 

 these days of hammerless-ejector guns it is surely 

 but little trouble, and if the cartridges remain in the 

 gun, a slip, however slight, may bring about an 

 accident which may lead to appalling results, even 

 with the gun at *' safety." 



Having given this lecture, which is not written 

 in any spirit of interference, but owing simply to 



the knowledge from long experience that it should 



M 



