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THE CANADIAN SPORTSMAN AND NATURALIST. 



£orre$pon6ence. 



"CRACK" AND OTHER "SHOTS." 



To the Editor of the Canadian Sportsman and 

 Naturalist : — 



" It is generally the mistaken iilea of those 

 who are do judges of shooting, that if a man 

 kills a certain number of times without miss- 

 ing, he is to be put down as a first-rate shot ; 

 and that another person, because he has been 

 seen to miss, is to be considered as his in- 

 ferior.'' — Col. Hawker. 



There is, no doubt, a large amount of 

 charlatanry in the pretentions of a soi-disant 

 '• crack shot," an illustration of which I may 

 superadd to the cases alluded to in your last 

 impression. I knew a gentleman, in England, 

 who was said never to miss a shot ; and he 

 never, or " hardly ever," did. But then his 

 modus operandi was as follows: he rarely 

 pulled trigger on a bird at a greater distance 

 than from 30 to 40 yards, and he scarcely ever 

 even aimed at a bird that flew away to the 

 right. I refer now to Partridge-shooting, and 

 I need not say, that a very ordinary marksman 

 ought seldom to miss a bird flying straight 

 away from him, or to his left, at 30 yards. I 

 knew another gentleman, a distinguished 

 sportsman, who, although an excellent shot, 

 did, and not unfrequently,fail to bag a bird he 

 shot at ; but, Ms style was somewhat different. 

 He had a keeper always at his elbow with a 

 seco d gun, and, having brought down his 

 birds, right and left, with the first, the second, 

 one of Lancaster's No 9, with steel barrels, was 

 placed in his hands, and he often bagged a 

 second brace, generally a third bird, from one 

 covey. An excellent test of accuracy of aim 

 may be demonstrated in the Old Country by 

 paying a visit, in a boat, to the caves with 

 which the rock-bound coast of Kerry, Ireland, 

 is indented, and which are the haunts of seals, 

 of many varieties of wild-fowl, and Rock- 

 pigeons, Columba livia. Send a man in a 

 spare boat into one of these caves, and the 

 pigeons, called also Sea-pigeons, will fly out 

 with meteor-like rapidity ; and to drop them as 

 they wing their way towards you, will put to 

 the proof the accuracy of your eye and the 



steadiness of your nerves. How different and 

 how superior this sport to the almost 

 mechanical process of firing at the same birds 

 from a trap. Apropos of trap-shooting, I once 

 saw a number of school boys in a field, in 

 England, some with guns in their hands, and 

 some with baskets. I stopped to watch them, 

 and found that they were about to engage in a 

 pigeon-shooting match. A bird was trapped ; 

 the word was given ; the trap was sprung; the 

 pigeon was on the wing ; a gun was discharged ; 

 and down came the bird, wounded, as I sup- 

 posed, for it lay fluttering on the ground. To 

 my astonishment, however, a ■ bo3 r ran up, 

 seized the pigeon, and trapped it again. 

 Explanation : the unhappy bird had a long 

 slender string attached to its leg, and when it 

 was not hit, it was pulled down, and submitted 

 to another ordeal. Such is sport as some 

 define the term ! V. Clementi. 



Peterboro, Pebruaiy 20, 1882. 



A BOY'S ENCOUNTER WITH A BEAR. 



Sir, — The following true account of an 

 adventure with a bear may be of interest to 

 your readers. In August last, a boy about 

 twelve years of age, living within seven miles 

 from this place, started for the woods one 

 morning in search of his father's cows. He 

 had with him a shot-gun, and was accom- 

 panied by a dog ; having entered the woods a 

 short distance, the dog, which had hitherto 

 kept close to his heels, bounded suddenly away 

 and was soon lost to view. Thinking there 

 was game ahead, he followed as fast as his 

 short legs and the bushes would permit in the 

 direction the dog had taken. On reaching 

 a place where the undergrowth was thick and 

 tangled, an animal rushed past him at a speed 

 too great to enable him to see what it was ; 

 he then became alarmed and began to beat a 

 retreat, and well he did so, for at this moment 

 the ugly visage of a bear approached. Between 

 fright, and a desire to get home, (just then,) 

 the boy succeeded in reaching a more open space 

 before Bruin caught up to him. He then 

 turned around and as her ladyship raised to 

 give him a fond embrace, the little fellow 

 dashed the gun into her face, having forgotten in 

 the excitement of the moment that it was loaded. 

 This seemed to disconcert the bear a little, and 

 the youth started to run in another direction, 

 but was almost immediately pursued. Having 

 to scramble over a large hemlock log, the bark 

 gave way and he rolled over, being partly 



