680 Bob JVhite, the Game Bird of America. 



unless fairly hit, he can carry off a number of pellets. When 

 a covey springs, it rises at a considerable angle with the ground. 

 Hence, in shooting at a bird in a flushed covey, the sportsman of 

 unsteady nerve and sluggish muscles is apt to undershoot, the bird 

 rising with such velocity that by the time the gunner has brought 

 his gun into position the bird has passed above his line of sight. As 

 a rule, I think that about one second generally elapses between the 

 instant of springing of the bird and the moment of fire. This inter- 

 val gives the bird time to gain a moderately horizontal line of flight, 

 and allows the sportsman to get a fair aim. 



In shooting at an incoming bird, let him be out of sight, and 

 just below the rib of your gun at the moment of firing. At a bird 

 going overhead, wait till he has passed well over ; then shoot under 

 him. At straightaway shots, hold a little high, so that you just catch 

 a glimpse of the bird over your barrels. 



In shooting at cross shots, it should be understood that the 

 velocity of an ounce of No. 8 shot driven with three drams of 

 powder is near to 900 feet per second. In that second a Bob 

 White, if under full headway, will go 88 feet, if we estimate the 

 velocity of his flight so low as only a mile a minute. If he is 

 flying directly across your line of sight and thirty yards off, the shot 

 will take one-tenth of a second to reach that distance, and in one- 

 tenth of a second the bird has gone over eight and eight-tenths 

 feet. So, if we should fire a snap-shot directly at a cross-flying 

 bird thirty yards distant, the center of the cloud of shot would fall 

 about nine feet behind him, and he would pass by unscathed. To 

 kill him " clean," you must hold nine feet ahead of him. To some 

 sportsmen nine feet may seem a great distance to "hold ahead" 

 on a cross-flying bird thirty yards away, but not to those who have 

 noticed attentively the relations of the line of their aim to the posi- 

 tion of the bird at the very moment they hear the report of their gun. 

 Also, estimations of distances in the air beside a small and quickly 

 moving object are very unreliable, and often when the sportsman 

 thinks he has fired only one foot ahead of a bird he has really 

 held ahead three feet. Let some one suspend horizontally in the 

 air an unfamiliar object that must be distant from fence-rails and 

 other things whose dimensions you know, and then guess its length. 

 You will, after a few trials, be satisfied that the estimation of actual 

 lengths at thirty yards is very fallacious. 



