SHOOTING THE GROUSE 



killed ; but why, oh ! why did you turn round ? the 

 fourth one you shot at and missed was ridiculously 

 far, and then one nearly knocked your cap off mean- 

 while. Again you change guns, and kill one out of 

 two hastily shot at behind the butts, and as you again 

 get your seventh and eighth barrels to work you find 

 that birds have been streaming straight to you all the 

 while, tailing off after the main body of the pack. 

 Result five birds with your eight barrels, while, shoot- 

 ing as well as you do, you ought to have very easily 

 killed with all the shots and secured eight birds. As 

 long as there are birds still coming on you should never 

 turn round at all, but keep on plugging away always 

 at those which catch your eye as coming easiest, and 

 letting them get tolerably near you before firing. As 

 in watching a first-rate professional at billiards you 

 will be astonished at the number of easy strokes he 

 gets, and notice how seldom he takes a difficult one, 

 so a high-class performer with the gun will achieve as 

 much by his rapid selection of easy chances as by 

 accuracy of shooting. There will always be plenty of 

 difficult shots during a drive on which to employ his 

 more brilliant efforts, and which he will kill with all 

 the more certainty from ' getting his eye in ' at the 

 easy ones. But this is a part of the art that is not 

 learned in a day, even by the most brilliant natural shot. 



