HARES AND RABBITS 141 



was seen no more. It had taken a rabbit-run which 

 led it in the nick of time to safety. 



There is a saying that any fool can hit a hare. 

 But it is better not to be able to hit hares at all than 

 always to hit them in their hinder parts. I knew a 

 keeper who could shoot rabbits cleanly one after the 

 other in any circumstances, yet he was useless at 

 hares, which he seldom failed to miss altogether. 

 On hares there is more preventable suffering inflicted 

 by the thoughtless and the unskilled than on any 

 other game if only for this reason, it is a good 

 thing that hares in many parts are extinct. Surely, 

 if a man can manage to hit a partridge occasionally, 

 he can remember, when shooting at a hare, that its 

 head and neck represent an area equal to that of a 

 partridge. If he cannot, his intellect must be so 

 weak that he ought not to be allowed to shoot at all, 

 unless by way of suicidal practice. Once I was 

 feeling so disgusted with a shooter for persisting in 

 blazing at hares out of reasonable range that when 

 he said to me, * Did I hit that hare ?' I asked, ' Why 

 did you shoot ? 



More than one dog has been shot instead of the 

 object which it was pursuing. A party of guns were 

 shooting in a wood. As the underwood was thick, 

 and the beaters were few and game was scarce, the 

 host sent a favourite Irish terrier to enliven the pro- 

 ceedings. There was a double shot. One of the 

 party took an early opportunity to inform the host 



