" HUNTING " VERSUS " SHOOTING." 77 



Sport is generally considered to rank in merit in proportion to the art required in 

 bringing an animal to bag. About such ranking of sport different codes of etiquette 

 spring up, as to what is "sporting" or what is not sporting; but the main idea of 

 all such codes is that the sport which entails the greater skill and knowledge is more 

 " sporting " than that which requires the lesser skill, for it gives the animal more of a 

 " sporting chance." That is the only real difference between fly-fishing and float-fishing. 

 The main ideas are the same, viz., that you catch a fish on a hook attached to a line 

 and rod. Yet fly-fishing ranks much higher than float-fishing, because it requires far 

 greater skill and so gives the fish a more sporting chance. It is not merely luck 

 which counts towards success with the former, but a certain amount of luck combined 

 with skill. In the same way, no reason can be given for the opprobrium in which 

 the shooting of " sitting" birds is held, except one similar. The shooting of birds on 

 the wing is more difficult, and thus gives the birds a greater chance ; therefore it is 

 sporting, whereas the other is not. Similarly then, the shooting of the wily bush 

 animal should rank much higher than the shooting of the plains animal, for the 

 former art requires varied skill, whereas the latter does not (not so much though in 

 the pulling of the trigger, for the shot is generally fired at very short range). 



Bush-shooting requires more skill in the preliminary manoeuvres, and in this it 

 corresponds to fly-fishing. For in fly-fishing the actual hooking of the fish, if it 

 rises well to the fly, is not the difficulty ; the chief difficulty lies in the preliminary 

 mancEuvres. The craft of the fly-fisher is in selecting his position and the likely places 

 in the stream, and the choice and presenting of his lure ; these are the things which 

 enhance this sport. As for the playing of the fish, this in a measure corresponds 

 to the difficulty of tracking a wounded animal in bush and finally bringing him to bag. 



Likewise, in bush-hunting the game has more of a chance. How often does one 

 get up near the quarry when the sudden crashing of branches tells that the wind has 

 played you false. Or it may be that one slight error in judgment or the treading on 

 one dead twig nullifies a whole day's work, or, again, it may be through no fault of the 

 hunter's own, but through some quite unforeseen accident or through some vagary 

 on the part of the animal, that the chance is spoilt. 



Moreover, the hunter of bush game can never be a butcher, whatever else he 

 may be. When inexperienced he may be more likely to shoot an immature animal or 

 a female than he would if shooting in the plains. Even when experienced it is often 

 impossible to see the size of the horns when only some small portion of the animal is 

 visible, besides which it may also be equally impossible to get any nearer. 



On such an occasion there is the temptation to shoot and chance its being a 

 good animal, especially if it is of a species never before obtained. However, such a 



