Field Sports in Minnesota. 



721 



have taken fair toll, we are 

 favored with more "singles" 

 than flocks ; the shooting is 

 consequently more interesting, 

 because more difficult. Clean 

 misses at these swift-flying 

 birds are frequent. It seems 

 at times next to an impossibility 

 ing the gun rapidly enough 

 to cover and avoid shooting 

 behind. Shooting into flocks 

 "for general results," without 

 singling out a bird, may be 

 excusable in a Sunday "pot- 

 hunter," or in a novice anxious 

 to give a new Scott, Purdy, or 

 Parker a good airing ; but in a 

 true sportsman — never. High 

 or long shots should seldom be 

 attempted here, as misses be- 

 yond fifty or sixty yards are 

 common, and scores of birds are 

 struck whose wounds prove 

 fatal only after long suffering. 



shots are most deadly; but proper allowance must be made 

 for distance and speed of flight. Opportunities for double shots 

 occur continually, and to make them it is often necessary to use the 

 first barrel of the gun on an incoming bird, and the second will 

 then, in all probability, be a side or quartering shot. 



To stop an " incomer," raise the gun carefully in the line of his 

 flight : move quickly ahead of the duck, when you judge him to be 

 in range ; and, when you lose sight of head and bill over your gun, 

 pull instantlv. The flight of a cluck is ordinarily at the rate of about 

 mil. s an hour; but when accelerated by fear, or a brisk wind, 

 or both, it is nearly double, and must be experimented upon to be 

 fully appreciated. To become a good "pass shot, some of the 

 requisites are: to be able to judge distances quickly and accurately; 

 to be able to cover well the moving bird, and not to check the motion 

 46 



STOPPING AN INCOMER. 



