264 MANUAL FOB YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



which would otherwise get off, either being missed, or 

 affording no chance of a shot to the man who finds them. 



Always endeavor to mark down a dead bird or a 

 missed bird. The former by noting exactly some branch, 

 leaf, stone or tuft of grass which you have seen it touch 

 in falling, and then bringing that mark into bearing with 

 some other point, which will fill your memory and enable 

 you to identify the place, when you bring back your eye, 

 after diverting it for the purpose of loading. 



This precaution is particularly necessary in snipe- 

 shooting, where every tuft of rushes has so many fac- 

 similes, that unless you have made it safe by bringing it into 

 line with some post, stump, tree or roof, or other distant 

 object on the horizon, you will certainly be at fault to 

 recover it. 



Even when using the best retrievers, this point is 

 worthy of observation, and attention to it will reward the 

 pains. Much time will be saved by the shooter being able 

 to put his dog exactly on the spot ; and, what is more, the 

 fresh ground will not be disturbed, as it otherwise would 

 be, by the dogs trashing it over and over, in seeking dead. 



In marking live birds, let the young sportsman beware 

 of supposing that the birds have alighted, because he has 

 lost sight of them, which he may easily do from any one 

 of half a dozen causes ; from their passing behind interven- 

 ing obstacles, or into or through undistinguishable hollows 

 and swells of the ground ; from their flying actually out 

 of sight, or, what is, I think, the most common of all, when 

 the birds are flying low over a background of nearly the 

 same color with themselves, from the marker's eye becom- 



