NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



have deprived shooting of half its former drawbacks. 

 Smokeless cartridges, loaded by good makers, are 

 usually so perfect, and are to be obtained at such reason- 

 able prices, that black powder has become as out of 

 date as the flint and steel itself. As for guns, they 

 seem to be rapidly approaching perfection. Even the 

 shooter of weak physique, or the lady gunner can now 

 obtain a good, hard killing weapon, combining marvel- 

 lous lightness with absence of recoil, so that shooting 

 with it is a positive luxury. 



Sportsmen and women of this year of grace have 

 indeed much to be thankful for. I often look at an old 

 shot belt of my grandfather's, with its long, leather, 

 snake-like bag, which buckled round the body and over 

 the shoulder. From this engine of terror the shot 

 were poured into a little brass scoop, which fitted with 

 a catch into the top of the pouch. The contents of the 

 scoop, when charged, were then poured down the gun- 

 barrel. What an operation — of itself only a part of the 

 very serious business of loading — for frozen fingers on 

 a winter's day ! That belt was in use only sixty or 

 seventy years ago. When one contrasts the ancient 

 paraphernalia of shooting with the luxurious and labour- 

 saving equipments of the present day, one can only lift 

 up one's hands and exclaim, with Dominie Sampson, 

 *' Prodigious ! " 



It is a curious fact, perhaps worth recalling, that 

 partridge-netting was pursued by country gentlemen 

 down to the end of the eighteenth century. My own 

 grandfather was born in 1774 ; he lived to see the flint- 

 lock superseded by the percussion cap, but not to wit- 

 ness the triumph of the breechloader over the percus- 

 sion system. In his youth it is quite probable that he 

 may have seen or known of partridge-netting. This 

 method of sport — for it was undoubtedly classed by 



274 



