92 SHOOTING THE HARE 



Straight.' They do not, therefore, miss the unfortunate 

 hare, as Uttle bits of fleck floating in the air demon- 

 strate ; but what becomes of her ? Occasionally she 

 is picked up by the beaters, dead, in a hedgerow three 

 fields away, but more often she is killed — an emaciated 

 wreck — by some shepherd's dog or cur, three weeks 

 afterwards. The error and the cruelty are not charge- 

 able to the powers of the gun, nor to the aim of the 

 owner, but to his bad and hasty judgment in firing 

 shots, some of which no doubt will occasionally kill, 

 but which in nine cases out of ten he ought to leave 

 alone. I recollect the case being neatly summed up by 

 a sportsman of my acquaintance, somewhat precise in 

 language, but not very skilful with the gun, whom I 

 had watched missing hare after hare that rose almost 

 between his legs, and fled from him straight down the 

 drills of a turnip field which, for some reason or other, 

 we were beating in that direction. ' You see, my dear 

 sir,' said he, ' the reason that I do not kill these hares 

 is that, in running directly from me down the furrows, 

 they persistently expose to my aim that part of their 

 persons which is least immediately mortal' It was 

 very true, no doubt, but I do not think I have ever 

 heard it put in that way before or since. 



Thirty yards is the outside range at which hares 

 should be shot when running straight away from the 



