COVERT-SHOOTING 291 



business so entirely — as we have done 

 our best to make evident in these notes 

 — dependent on method in every detail 

 to make it a success. 



The whole tendency of recent years 

 has been to counteract the practical 

 certainty of a given number of pheasants 

 coming to the guns by making them so 

 difficult to kill that they cease to be 

 monotonous. Lately, this has sometimes 

 been carried too far, and in hilly country 

 guns are now not uncommonly asked to 

 shoot at pheasants quite beyond the 

 killing range of the gun. Shooting may 

 then still seem good fun to the thought- 

 less, but it is not a nice business ; no one 

 wishes to have their pheasants made so 

 easy that there is no skill in shooting 

 them ; nor should any one want to shoot 

 at pheasants that he may quite probably 

 Avound, but can practically only kill by a 

 fluke. 



There is a happy medium at which 

 birds call every quality of the marksman 

 into play, and yet where the odds are on 



