330 APPENDIX. 



line of flight, there is little chance of his escaping unpeppered (and 

 one grain will suffice), however adroitly he may turn and twist. For 

 any kind of bird flying at that distance rapidly down-wind and cross- 

 ing you, your gun ought to be pitched much further forward. A 

 still greater allowance should be made if the distance be considerable : 

 and greater elevation should be then given to the barrels, as the 

 grains of shot will become deflected. The same rule holds with birds 

 rising. Aim must be taken above them. There is always more fear 

 of your firing too much to the rear and too low, than too much to the 

 front and too high. Fancy that hares and rabbits have only heads 

 and get into the habit of looking at no other part, nay, of looking 

 yet further ahead. The best cover-shot I know says, that he aims at 

 a rabbit rushing through gorse or underwood a yard in front of the 

 spot where he last caught a glimpse of it. Rabbits halt for a moment 

 the instant they get hidden by cover not so hares. That their 

 hands and eyes may work in unison, novices have been recommended 

 to hang on the flight of swallows with an unloaded gun. It would 

 be better practice to hang on a full foot or more in front of the birds. 

 To save your locks use snap caps, and pull the very instant you 

 think your aim is correct. No second aim can be so effective as 

 the first. The more you thus practise (and at game especially, in 

 order to overcome any nervous sensation occasioned by birds rising) 

 before you commence using powder, the more certain is it that 

 you will eventually become a cool, steady shot. After having com- 

 menced the campaign in right earnest, should you be shooting un- 

 steadily or nervously, you would do well to have the philosophy 

 to go up a few times to your dog's point with uncapped nipples, and 

 by taking (long after the birds are on the wing, but yet within 

 shot) a deliberate aim reassure yourself of the folly of all hurry and 

 precipitancy. Lest you should (as often happens in spite of every 

 previous resolution) involuntarily pull the trigger sooner than you 

 intend, keep your finger off it until the very instant you wish to fire.* 

 If you shoot with a muzzle loader and carry one of Sykes's spring- 

 shot pouches at present in such general use by having its nozzle 

 lengthened (some few are made lone), I mean by having a cylinder 

 of nearly three inches in length welded to its end, you will be able 

 to load quicker than most of your fellow-sportsmen particularly if 

 you use a loading-rod : the best are of cane, because the material is 

 light and tough. You can make the long nozzle of the shot-pouch 

 (its end being cut square, i.e. at a right angle to its length) force the 

 wad over the powder so far down the barrel before you press the 

 pouch-spring to pour in the charge of shot, that you need not draw 

 your ramrod to drive home until after you have inserted the shot- 

 wad. Using a long nozzle has also this great advantage, that the 

 shot is packed more densely than the powder. In the new German 

 copper-cap musket (whose long range is now, 1854, much spoken of,) 

 to keep the powder loose when the charge is rammed home, a thick 

 peg, nearly one and a half inches long, is fixed longitudinally in the 



* See end of 448. 



