COVERT-SHOOTING. 87 



realised ridiculous, is copied verbatim from a 

 leading article in a leading London journal only- 

 some two or three years ago. After denouncing 

 the effeminacy of the modern pheasant shooter, 

 this sporting instructor to the multitude says : 

 " Sportsmen of tougher calibre, and more capable 

 of exertion, unnerved by misty weather {sic\ will 

 seek out the ' rocketer ' for themselves, and will 

 decline to try their skill upon him when he is 

 driven past them, ducking, calling, and chattering, 

 and as helpless as a young duckling making its 

 way to the water." These are feats which no one 

 ever saw the rocketer perform. But on another 

 occasion my risibility was likewise gladdened to its 

 inmost core by a fierce reprobation, possibly by the 

 same hand, of the cruelty of " partridge driving,' 

 which process was described as hemming the 

 unhappy birds with multitudinous beaters into the 

 corner of a field, there to be " butchered " in a mass 

 without skill on the part of the shooters or chance 

 of escape for the game : winding up with a 



