I/OPy TO KILL THEM 



159 



due to the stimulus of annoyance calling forth the 

 amount of energy which ought to have been applied 

 in the first instance. The gun must swing with 

 rapidity and accuracy, directed by the hand and eye ; 

 if you are not sufficiently keen, or are not roused to 

 the proper effort, in this, as in everything else, you 

 will fail. 



Now, as to the ordinary easily killable pheasant, 

 the great thing to bear in mind is that you have 

 nothing to do with his body or his tail. The latter ap- 

 pendage, so dear to the heart of the cockney journalist, 

 should have no concern or attraction for you, nor must 

 you allow your eye to be deceived by it. The head 

 and neck of a pheasant is roughly about the size of a 

 snipe, and a snipe driven past you at easy distance, if he 

 has ceased to twist, is rather less difficult than a driven 

 partridge. Proceed, therefore, on the principle that 

 the bird's head is a snipe, look well at it, and shoot 

 well in front of it. Should you not place the centre 

 of your charge with exact accuracy on the head and 

 neck, there will still be enough outside pellets to 

 strike the forward part of the body and kill in respect- 

 able style. But if you treat the pheasant as a 

 whole, from the tip of his beak to the point of his 

 tail, your shot will be landed about the rump and 

 thighs, and even though he falls in a cloud of 



