THE RIFLE AND THE SPY-GLASS. 5 



directions, and profuse bleeding ensues at once. Should, 

 however, the shooter have the bad luck to hit a deer 

 in the fore or hind leg, it is far better far the deer if 

 he be wounded with a solid bullet. 



Unless a clever dog be of the party, the stag will 

 frequently make good his escape, and quickly recover 

 from the wound of a solid bullet ; but if struck by an 

 expanding one, the bone will be so smashed, and the 

 tendons so much cut, that it will wither and fall off, and 

 then when winter conies, and the snow cannot be 

 scratched away to uncover his food, he will surely die. 

 Furthermore, against the use of the hollow bullet, with 

 even the '450 bore, there are many who urge with good 

 reason that, unless the deer be struck just in the right 

 place, and sometimes even then, they render the meat 

 very bloody and quite unfit for table. 



The writer has found it a good plan to take out both 

 sorts of bullets, and to load the rifle as the end of the 

 stalk is neared, being guided in the choice by the posi- 

 tion of the quarry. If, for instance, it is a solitary stag, 

 or two or three together, and they are quite unsus- 

 picious, and the ground shows that unless they move 

 there is every prospect of getting to a hundred yards 

 before firing, the first barrel should carry a solid bullet, 

 everything pointing to an easy quiet shot where no 

 difficulty should be found in planting the bullet within 

 an inch or so of the right spot. If, however, the stalk 

 is for one particular stag with thirty or forty others 

 with him, and perhaps double that number of hinds, a 

 hollow bullet should be placed in both barrels, as the 

 chances are the shot will have to be taken at from 



