168 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



shooting, and to take only the plain and open shots; to 

 take notice how he aims, and observe closely the result. 

 He should, on the other hand, avoid shooting too slowly. 

 As his skill increases, let him undertake to make the more 

 difficult shots with increased quickness, until it is with 

 him automatic to calculate while raising his gun the dis- 

 tance to the bird, and the direction and speed of its flight, 

 and to aim so that the center of his charge will strike it 

 down with reasonable certainty; then he will have the 

 right to consider himself an expert in all Sports Pteri- 

 plegistic, so far as marksmanship is concerned. 



The distance at which Bob Whites are killed, and the 

 percentage of successful shots, are, I believe, both gen- 

 erally overestimated by sportsmen. Fully two-thirds, if 

 not three-fourths, of the birds bagged are killed under 

 thirty yards. Nearly all the others are brought down 

 under forty yards. Those who kill frequently at sixty 

 and eighty yards, do it in their rocking-chairs or on 

 paper; they don't do it in the field. As to the percent- 

 age of the killing shots, where the sportsman takes all 

 reasonable chances, shooting in the brush as well as in 

 the open, I believe that 40 per cent, is a fair average. 

 Those of us who have shot a great deal, occasionally make 

 some wonderful scores; these we remember, and rate our 

 skill by them. We forget our "off" days, when we 

 would make a half-dozen consecutive misses. It is with 

 ease that I can recall my runs of fifteen or twenty birds 

 killed clean without a miss, but it requires considerable 

 mental effort to remember the days when my repeated 

 misses made even my good dogs wear an expression of 

 vexation and disgust. 



Of all field-sports, the shooting of Bob Whites is the 

 most refined, and the surroundings pertain most closely 

 to civilization. The wild-fowler stands alone amid bleak 

 surroundings; the snipe-shooter must plod his way 



