112 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
of the first-rate sportsman and naturalist no less than 
of the first-rate shot. Here is a simple instance: A 
whole posse of keepers, beaters and loaders of the 
ordinary sort may agree that a bird dropped just over 
a fence. The first-rate shot (I can find no better 
term to describe him) alone expresses doubt. The 
bird, no doubt, got over the fence at the point unani- 
mously agreed on, but he alone doubts his having 
dropped at once. On seeking for this bird much 
time is wasted in following the verdict of the majority, 
and it is eventually found to have crossed the whole 
of the next field before dropping under the next fence 
beyond. This is not experience, for the keepers, and 
probably some of the beaters, have plenty of that in 
such matters. It is simply that the accurate mind 
of our first-rate friend, though he expected the bird 
to drop after topping the fence, was not satisfied, 
although it lowered its level of flight again, that it did 
so ‘in articulo mortis.’ 
I have perhaps wandered from the question of 
style to that of thé attributes which produce it 
naturally ; but a great deal of style in shooting is 
acquired. ‘The feet must be firm on the ground, the 
body not bent forward, as shown in so many inferior 
pictorial representations, but ‘trunk erect,’as Kentfield 
has it in his book on billiards. What you will find 
