CHAPTER VI 
Target-pheasants, and how they would have been killed if they had been live birds 
fljdng overhead — The stringing of a charge of shot when fired from a gun. 
The pheasant (Fig. i) offers only three small vital parts to the 
gun (especially small to hit if it happens to be a really high 
bird). These are the head, the neck, and the heart. In all 
three cases, taking an overhead pheasant as 40 yds. high, a 
pellet must strike with great force to penetrate vital parts 
(especially to the heart), unless it chances to enter under the 
chin of the bird, or pass through an eye, or cut the windpipe 
in the neck. It may, however, stun the bird by hitting the 
skull without fracturing the bone, as exemplified in Series V. 
If a stag is shot through the heart, it will always spring 
forward about 20 yds. before it falls, though a flying bird 
struck in the same way drops instantly. In the former case 
the muscles of the limbs act after the animal is killed. In the 
latter, as the bird cannot use its legs, and has no contact with 
the ground, it at once collapses. 
Fig. I represents the under-surface and partial anatomy 
of a large cock pheasant. The bird is denuded of its feathers, 
and shows the target it actually presents to the shooter as it 
approaches him, just previous to passing in a direct line over 
55 
