ON THE CHOICE OF SHOT GUNS 47 



in front, in like circumstances, the gunner aimed 5 feet behind, 

 or, in other words, dead on the mark with a still gun, a hit 

 would be impossible : the game would never be in the line of 

 the shot after the trigger was pulled. This would be so, even 

 although the gun was following round with the bird ; so as to 

 ensure no loss consequent on the time occupied by the pull of 

 the trigger. It is clearly better to aim greatly too much in 

 front than a little too much behind. 



Even before the author ever engaged in driving game, he 

 had shot at the first bird of a covey and killed the last one, 

 7 or 8 yards behind. In shooting driven game this is 

 not an uncommon experience for beginners, and is a very 

 useful lesson ; for nobody has ever had the opposite experience, 

 and killed the first bird when shooting at the last. But when 

 this shooting at the pigeon and killing the crow occurs, it is not 

 always because of so vast a misdirection as is suggested. Five 

 feet of error at least may be accounted for by the longitudinal 

 spread of the shot, besides something more for the lateral 

 spread. Indeed, two birds in the same covey, one 8 feet 

 behind the other, have been killed at one shot ; but it rarely 

 happens. Nevertheless, when one of the two is much the further 

 away, as well as behind, then a bird a very much greater 

 distance than 8 feet behind the one shot at and killed, may 

 also fly into the shot, and die too. In practice, however, it is 

 very much easier to miss a whole pack of grouse that look to 

 be near enough together to kill a dozen at a shot. If one 

 tries to do a bit of " browning," it is generally not the birds that 

 are " done brown." If it is not the survival of the fittest that 

 has evolved grouse that look so much nearer together than they 

 are, it must be a wise provision of nature in the interests of 

 sportsmanship. 



From what has been said, it will be gathered that when 

 game is crossing fast, wounding is caused by bad timing. The 

 game is either through the shot column before much of it has 

 reached his line of flight, or he has not reached the shot column 

 when the majority of it has passed his line of flight. In 

 either case he gets but a small proportion of the shot pellets 



