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eye familiarised with the effect of a bird on 

 wing. His fire for some time to be made with 

 the wooden driver ; then with flint fixed, and a 

 charge of the pan only*; and lastly, with a due 

 load. The moment of a swallow's hover at an 

 insect may occasionally be selected for the 

 practice of the rapid shot; while its steady 

 horizontal sweeps afford the most exemplary 

 means of becoming a master of the deliberate 

 cross-shot. In the practice of the latter, he 

 will acquire a judgment of the proper distance 

 ahead of the bird, at which it may be necessary 

 to direct his aim at the moment of fire, in order 

 to make allowance for the further progress of 

 the bird into the centre of the disk of the shot, 

 during the advance of the latter to meet it. 

 With some it is a practice to level at the eye : 

 if the bird be very near, this may do ; but at 

 any distance it is by no means enough. When 

 your shot has forty or fifty yards to travel, you 

 may venture to take the bird's whole length, or 

 more. Even the state of the air will make a 

 material difference ; and in damp weather, not- 

 withstanding all the care you can take of the 



* This flash of the pan should be practised upon drill, 

 along a chalk line. A young recruit will perceive, even in 

 this flash, that his nerves will find out a difference between it 

 and the wooden driver ; and it is in the drill that he must 

 learn to conquer this difference, or he needs go no further. 



