64 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



necessitate an added allowance in front of game by f he slow 

 individual. In practice, however, these slow individuals never 

 admit the yards of allowance that they are supposed to need to 

 allow in front of fast crossing game. It has occurred to the 

 author to question whether the man of slow perception and of 

 slow muscular obedience does need to allow more than the quick 

 individual. Probably it is exactly the reverse ; and he has 

 to see less space between the muzzle and the game than the 

 quicker man and than he of what is mistakenly called less 

 personal error. 



The "personal error" seems to be in assuming that the slow 

 individual does not subconsciously know his own speed, and 

 compensate for it. 



Apparently it is mistaken to place the actions of shooting 

 in this or any other sequence of events. It is said, "You see 

 the game, you aim, your eyes tell the brain your aim is true, 

 your brain orders the muscles to let off the gun." That is 

 possibly correct for some people, but the author does not 

 believe that any fast crossing game would ever be killed if it 

 were so. His view is that there is the game; your brain now 

 instructs two sets of muscles to move in different directions, 

 one to move the gun and another to pull the trigger, and at the 

 same time informs each how rapidly to act in order that left- 

 hand gun-swing and right index-finger pressure may arrive 

 precisely together. This is what is called hand and eye working 

 together, but it should be hand and finger. The eye certainly 

 may observe whether the two things have been done at the same 

 instant of time, but when they have not there is no time for 

 correction ; all the eye can do is to inform the brain that the 

 swing did not catch up before the gun was off, or the reverse, 

 so that the brain may correct the missed timing for the next 

 shot. It is necessary to observe that the finger pressure starts, 

 as does the swing of the gun, before aim is completed, and that 

 if the latter were got before the order to pull were given by the 

 brain, it would be lost by the mere continued swing of the gun 

 before the order could be executed. 



What has to be considered, then, is what appears to the 



