324 SHOOTING 



neck, and spurs an inch long, and as sharp and hard 

 as if they had been made of iron. 



Very amusing it is, too, to watch the shooters. 

 There stands one man, picking his birds, and dread- 

 ing a miss for the sake of his reputation ; here is a 

 greedy shot, firing at everything, blowing much of 

 his game to pieces, for fear anyone else should get 

 a shot ; and again, there is the keeper's liorror and 

 detestation — a man who sends off his birds wounded, 

 as a rule hitting them, but very seldom killing one 

 clean, with the exception of those that he utterly 

 annihilates. Lookers-on are apt to laugh at sports- 

 men for missing pheasants, so large do they look, 

 and such apparently easy shots do they give ; and 

 until a person tries himself, he has no idea how 

 fast they really do fly, or how easy it is to miss 

 them. 



Eabbit-shooting is capital sport ; indeed, none can 

 be better for affording sport to a large Christmas- 

 party in the country. Everybody enjoys it, and 

 brightens up at the idea, from the schoolboy home 

 for the holidays — who has been in and out of the 

 house scores of times already to see how the 

 weather looked, whether the beagles would be 

 ready, or on some other wonderful pretext — to the 

 old sportsman, who did not know whether he should 

 come, but cannot resist the temptation, merely 



