104 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
considering pace, wind, &c., will remain a matter of 
natural gift. I believe the root of a great deal of bad 
shooting is to be found here ; a trick or -habit of 
aiming a¢ the bird. This, in the case of a moving 
object, obviously can never be right, excepting in the 
occasional instances here stated. 
Now the difference in result when a first-rate 
exponent is at work is simply enormous. It is 
wonderful to look at ; and there is nothing prettier to 
watch than how each bird falls, crumpled up by the 
centre of the charge, exactly at the moment you in- 
voluntarily expect it, and looking as though it received 
a deliberate box on the ear, knocking it completely 
out of time. There is no appearance of haste or 
hurry, and though the performance looks, as I say, 
deliberate, you would be astonished to find how really 
rapid it is, and how much oftener the professor gets 
his gun off in a given time than the average man. 
A great deal of this effective result is due to the 
habit or science of shooting forward of the bird by 
calculation. The calculation is rapid, and, I think, 
instinctive ; but it is there, just as it is with a man 
fielding a ball or running for a catch at cricket. He 
doesn’t run or stretch out his hand to where the ball 
is at the moment of seeing it, but to the spot where 
it will meet his hand ; and so it should be with the 
