SHOOTING. 233 



and so late as within eighty years an individual who exercised the 

 art of shooting birds on the wing was considered as performing 

 something extraordinary, and many persons requested to attend 

 his excursions, that they might be eye-witnesses of it. Since 

 that period the practice has been more common, and is at present 

 almost universal ; so that lads of sixteen bring down their birds 

 with all due accuracy. To prescribe any extensive rules for the 

 attainment of this art may now be deemed superfluous, and 

 therefore they will be reduced into a very narrow compass. 



" In shooting, it is to be ever remembered, that the hand is 

 to obey the eye, and not the eye be subservient to the hand. 

 Both eyes should be open,* and the object fired at, the instant 

 the muzzle of the gun is brought up, and fairly bears upon it ; 

 the sight becomes weakened by a protracted look along the barrel 

 at a bird, and it is for this reason that birds which spring at the 

 marksman's feet, and fly off horizontally, are frequently missed ; 

 his keeping the aim upon them so long fatigues the eye, and the 

 finger does not obey the eye so readily as when employed at a 

 first glance. It is not here meant that a bird is to be blown to 

 atoms as soon as it tops the stubble, but that a marksman is first 

 to make himself a thorough judge of distance : with that 

 knowledge in open shooting, he will never put the gun to his 

 shoulder until the bird has flown a proper length, and then fire 

 the instant the sight of it is caught. 



* This I regard as a mistaken notion. I have already noticed the 

 subject. However, let any person point a gun to a fixed object ; by 

 shutting one eye, and directing the other down the barrel, he will easily 

 perceive that the level is true : by directing both eyes down the barrel, 

 he will not only perceive a degree of confusion, as it were, but the aim 

 will be with more difficulty, as well as more uncertainty, directed to the 

 object. Nevertheless, I am willing to admit that there are those who 

 shoot remarkably well, who keep both eyes open. Yet, a rifle man or 

 sharp shooter always closes one eye ; if therefore the latter mode is pre- 

 ferable with a ball, why not in shooting at game with shot ? 



u3 



