ge ve ON BIG GAME SHOOTING GENERALLY § 
a So sonicks for the ethics of Big Game Shooting ; as to the 
a practical side of it, let it be said at once that it is impossible 
upon paper to teach any man to become a successful big 
_ game hunter. Upon the hillside or in the forest, with an 
expert to guide him, with the floating mists to teach him some- 
_ thing of the way of the winds, with game tracks or the game 
_ itself before him, each man has to learn for himself, and even 
_ then he learns more from his own mistakes than from anyone 
' else. To be really successful a man wants so many things; ~ 
_ he needs so many qualities combined in his own person. To 
_ bea good shot means but little. The man who can win prizes 
_ at Wimbledon may be a successful deer-stalker, but it by no 
- means follows that he will be. He has one good quality in his 
_ favour, but even that quality varies with the varying conditions 
_ under which he shoots. With his pulses steady, his heart 
__ beating regularly, his wind sound, his digestion unimpaired, his 
' eyes free from moisture, with the distances measured off for 
_ him, and with a bull’s-eye to shoot at, he may make phenomenal 
_ scores ; but when he has been living upon heavy dampers and 
_ strong tea taken at irregular intervals, his digestion may become 
impaired. When he has toiled all day and come fast up a steep 
incline at the end of a long stalk, his pulse will not be steady, 
his sides may be heaving like those of a blown horse, his eye 
may be dimmed by a bead of sweat which will cling to his eye- 
lash and fall salt and painful into his eye just when it should 
be at its clearest. The distances are not marked for him, and the 
_ atmosphere varies so much at different altitudes, that it is not 
always easy to judge how far he is from his quarry, and that 
quarry, instead of being marked in black and white for his con- 
venience, has an awkward trick of being just the colour of the 
hillside, with an outline which at 200 yards melts into the 
_ background and becomes one with its surroundings. 
__ Many a man who shoots well at a mark is a poor shot in 
3 the woods ; but luckily the converse of this proposition is also 
_ ‘true. Again, strength and endurance, steady nerve and quick 
