s/c 



PREFACE 



WHEN the publishers asked me to write a book upon 

 Shooting and its interest, I at first doubted whether 

 I knew enough of the matter to fill a book of much size 

 without repeating all the traditional lore that is to be found in 

 every unread text-book, but I had no sooner undertaken the 

 business than I came to a conclusion that has since been 

 confirmed, that to deal as best I could, with the kind help of 

 many sportsmen, with the controversial subjects would have 

 taken the whole space at my disposal for any one of them. 

 Consequently, ever and again I have had to decide what to 

 eliminate, and I have tried to leave out that which most people 

 know already, and to deal as best I can in short space with 

 questions that are now more or less under discussion, and 

 consequently those that game preservers and shooters in this 

 and other countries are thinking about. It has been very 

 difficult to draw a line between the controversial and current 

 subjects and the unchallenged facts which have been too often 

 repeated already, but that this is the right principle is, I think, 

 obvious from the position that the opposite course would 

 involve. What is meant can be best explained by glancing at 

 a few traditional survivals in gunnery and shooting, and its 

 accompanying un-natural history, which, along with many 

 others, would occupy space if one were to attempt to deal with 

 all the accepted, as well as the repudiated, statements upon 

 them. Nobody wants to be told that he should put the powder 

 into a cartridge-case before the shot, but to begin at the 



