SNAP-SHOOTING. 33 



in later years fails them. Perhaps the muscles are more 

 elastic, and respond instantaneously to the eye. This 

 mere boy at snap-shooting in the ' rough ' will beat crack 

 sportsmen hollow. At the trap with pigeons he would 

 probably fail ; but in a narrow lane where the rabbits, 

 driven out by the ferrets, just pop across barely a yard of 

 open ground, where even a good shot may miss repeatedly, 

 he is ' death ' itself to the ' bunnies.' So, too, with a wood- 

 hare — i.e. those hares that always lie in the woods as 

 others do in the open fields and on the uplands. They 

 are difficult to kill. They slip quietly out from the form 

 in the rough grass under the ashstole, and all you have for 

 guidance is the rustling and, perhaps, the tips of the ears, 

 the body hidden by the tangled dead ferns and ' rowetty ' 

 stuff. When you try to aim, the barrel knocks against the 

 ashpoles, which are inconveniently near together, or the 

 branches get in the way, and the hare dodges round a tree, 

 and your cartridge simply barks a bow and cuts a tall 

 dead thistle in twain. But the keeper's lad, who had 

 waited for your fire, instantly follows, as it seems hardly 

 lifting his gun to his shoulder, and the hare is stopped by 

 the shot. 



Rabbit-shooting, also, in an ash wood like this is try- 

 ing to the temper ; they double and dodge, and if you 

 wait, thinking that the brown rascals must presently cross 

 the partially open space yonder, lo ! just at the very edge 



up go their white tails and they dive into the bowels of 



D 



