IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 
61 
The length of the string or column of pellets from a cylinder- 
barrel is longer than it is from a choked one, though, up to 
30 yds., the cylinder has generally a higher velocity than the 
choke, as it does not distort the pellets to the same extent 
as the choke does. 
In theory, the slower pellets of the column, or those nearest 
the gun, have a velocity that enables them to reach, at 40 yds., 
a fast overhead or a crossing bird, before it can fly clear and 
escape them, on the principle that the slowest pellets of the 
charge would travel up this distance much faster than the 
time the bird would take to fly its own length. 
This theory, common to text-books on gunnery, is not, 
however, borne out by practice. 
From observation and experiment I do not believe that 
more than, if, indeed, as much as, three-quarters of the long 
column of shot is of any service to a shooter in killing a high 
pheasant or a distant crossing one. 
The slower or hindmost pellets of the shot-column all show 
on a stationary target, as they cannot fail to reach it ; but 
a considerable proportion of these do not reach a fast crossing 
bird before it has flown clear of many of them, if it was missed ; 
or, if it was killed, before they can come up to the position 
the bird was in when it fell to the shot. 
When grouse-driving, I have often killed the foremost bird 
of several crossing me at a long-range down-wind, and then, 
an instant after, seen another drop dead that was some yards 
behind the first one at the time the latter fell. 
At near 40 yds. the few most divergent pellets of a charge 
of shot may be some 20 yds. apart, and it might be supposed 
that one of these stray pellets may sometimes have the luck 
to strike a following bird in the head and kill it. This cannot 
