326 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



not a hare will be found in them for some time, whereas all 

 the pheasants that are left alive will be back to roost the next 

 day at latest, unless they have been driven to coverts that they 

 know and like equally well. 



People affect to despise shooting hares, and when they are 

 driven out of coverts into the open they are of course rather 

 more easy than pheasants fluttering up at a corner; but in 

 high undergrowth, in covert or out, they are much more often 

 missed than pheasants. In standing barley they are very 

 difficult, and if turnips are really high they are not easy there. 

 But the author has rarely seen clever hare shooting when the 

 beasts have been driven up to fences in the low country, and 

 up to the hilltops in Scotland. It is true that if only one or 

 two hares come together, it is simplicity itself to handle them, 

 but suppose four hares are each seen 20 yards apart coming up 

 to your stand. If you can kill the four, you understand wood- 

 craft as well as shooting. If you do not know the former, you 

 will get one or at most two hares and frighten the others away. 

 Your object will be to get all the hares nearly together before 

 you take the farthest off one, then the next farthest off, and 

 you will have two very much scared hares starting probably 

 from your very feet for your second gun. The shooting then 

 becomes extremely difficult, because it has to be very smart 

 indeed. Sometimes, instead of four you may have twenty hares 

 all within 80 yards, and it has been known that by shooting at 

 the first within range all the rest have escaped without a shot. 

 It is the habit of blue hares to follow each other up the runs 

 through the heather or over the moss and stones ; when one 

 stops, the others seeing him stop too. Consequently, the way to 

 get them together is only to stop the first hare when he has 

 approached near and is also out of sight of the others behind, 

 which any little unnevenness of the ground accomplishes. A 

 sharp " click," which was most easily accomplished by cocking 

 a gun in the days before the hammerless, is enough. One 

 stone rapped once only on another will do it. But the hare 

 must not see that, or any other movement, or he will be off 

 at once. If he has not the advantage of the wind, and so 



