1 80 SHOOTING A T DEER 



venture to assert that, if the gunner adheres to shoot- 

 ing only at his own birds as they come straight 

 towards him, and follows out the above plan, he will 

 cease to pay attention to any birds which may be 

 flying too wide of his limit. 



One clean-shot bird is worth a dozen which have 

 been tailored and rendered fit only for the feather- 

 merchant. 



Even with deer-stalking a similar rule to that given 

 above is necessary to ensure clean shooting. It does 

 not do to fire at the deer, neither must we fire only at 

 his body, but we must try and imagine a small bull's- 

 eye behind the shoulder ; nor even then must that 

 spot be covered point-blank exactly, but we must 

 imagine this spot to be as it were sitting on the sight 

 of the rifle, and, if the animal is in motion, due allow- 

 ance must be given by firing in a lateral direction in 

 advance of this spot, so as to allow time for the bullet 

 to reach it after the trigger is pulled ; the bullet will 

 then, probably, strike the beast on some fatal spot 

 in the belly or forequarters, and an ' Express' bullet 

 is fatal in such parts. Nevertheless, I have known 

 deer to travel a long distance after the bullet had 

 gone clean through the belly ; and on one occasion a 

 stag which I had shot through the very point of the 

 heart covered a distance of some three hundred yards 

 before dropping. Nor is this at all an isolated case ; 

 for that well-known Nimrod of deer-stalkers, the late 

 Mr. Horatio Ross, experienced the same on more than 

 one occasion when he had shot a stag in the point of 

 the heart. Of course, in these instances the bullet was 

 solid, for the effect of an ' Express ' or explosive bullet 

 in such a spot would have necessarily been at once 



