300 THE STILL-HUNTER. 



be discharged than to raise it upon some other point 

 and then shift it. For if you raise it upon the game 

 the temptation to fire then will be too strong; and if 

 you raise it behind the game and attempt to shift it 

 forward you will be tempted to fire when the sight 

 first touches the animal's outline. In both cases you 

 will be liable to shoot too high because you will be 

 quite certain to be too hasty. 



The necessity of firing ahead of moving game has 

 been so strongly disputed by some who are unquestion- 

 ably good field-shots, and the principle is so essential 

 in shooting moving game with the rifle, that it merits 

 some attention. The question is one susceptible of 

 positive proof by the plainest principles of philosophy; 

 so I will omit all boasting of " experience," etc., and 

 call upon an impartial arbiter. 



If two railroad trains were running parallel at a hun- 

 dred yards apart and at the rate of thirty miles an hour, 

 a ball fired from one at a mark upon the other would 

 strike the mark the same as if both trains were at rest. 

 (We are supposing, of course, that the wind will make no 

 difference.) But if one were moving at only one mile an 

 hour, a ball fired from that would strike the other 

 train at a point distant from the mark aimed at just 

 twenty-nine thirtieths of the distance the train fired at 

 moved while the ball was passing a hundred yards. 

 In other words, the ball moves sidewise with the 

 lateral motion of the train from which it is fired at 

 only one thirtieth of the speed it had when the train 

 moved thirty miles an hour instead of one mile. The 

 ball in both cases takes the diagonal of a parallelogram 

 built upon the line of fire a hundred yards, and the 

 line of space the train from which it was fired moved 

 while the ball was moving from train to train. The 



