but I accomplish the act by standing midway between the two, and shoot- 

 ing out at right angles, aiming by intuition, and seldom fail to strike the 

 exact center of each target. 



Once I adjusted the two arrows so carefully that in making a new 

 experiment each of the projectiles in its flight covered a complete semi- 

 circle, and met fifty yards behind me, the steel points of the arrow 

 heads becoming firmly fastened together. This I consider one of the 

 most difficult and scientific performances ever recorded in the line of 

 archery. 



W JERSEY SNIPE SHOOTING. 



My initiation as a snipe shooter over in New Jersey 

 was a memorable event in my sporting career, soliloquized 

 Senator Cornish, the organ manufacturer of Washington, 

 New Jersey, who seemed to be communing with himself 

 rather than speaking to the club members in the room. I 

 was fresh from the prairies of the West, and knew nothing 

 of shore or sea shooting in the vicinity of Gotham. One of my new found 

 friends informed me, confidentially, that the summer flight of snipe was at 

 its best on the Jersey marshes, and advised me to take a day off to try the 

 sport. Accordingh- I boarded an early train, engaged a native Jerseyman 

 as guide and companion, and in less than an hour was on the historic snipe 

 grounds at Pine Brook, made famous by Frank Forester. 



My preconceived notions of snipe shooting seemed to be entirely 

 wrong. The Jersey birds did not fl}' up and away in a zigzag course, 

 with a " scaipe ! " " scaipe ! " as I had always supposed would be the regu- 

 lar order of things. These snipe just buzzed up around and toward me 

 from every direction, and my breech-loader was kept hot by the repeated 

 firing. Never since the celebrated blaze at Barnegat had such a single- 

 handed fusilade occuiTed on the clinging soil of New Jersey. I killed an 

 immense number of birds, and finally stopped after exhausting the ammu- 

 nition and myself. My genial guide had bagged the snipe, and he laughed 

 long and loud as he retrieved them for me, and witnessed my skill as a 

 sportsman. 



Finally, when I came' to examine the wonderful bunch of birds I 

 found it had shrunk in size, and consisted mainly of gauzy wings 

 and long bills — in fact, Jersey mosquitoes! I added another bill 

 (denomination V) to the pile, handed it to my companion, 

 and as a parting act of politeness gave him my pocket pistol^ 

 heavily charged with double-distilled "Jersey lightning." 



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