CHAPTER VII 
The penetration of shot-pellets on live birds at various heights — The difference in 
the apparent size of a pheasant when seen overhead and horizontally — How to 
kill a pheasant overhead — How to kill a high pheasant that has passed behind 
the shooter. The position of the arms and hands when swinging a gun on game. 
I HAVE given the patterns and penetration of guns fired at 
targets at various altitudes. I have also described how a 
number of high pheasants were actually killed, Series V., and 
again, Series VI., VII., VIII., how high pheasants might be 
killed, or missed, when treated from a target point of view. 
I will now deal with the last experiment I carried out, 
which was to test the penetration of shot-pellets on pheasants 
at different heights. The results are curious, and, to a game- 
shooter, rather surprising. 
The birds in this experiment, Series IX., were full-grown 
cocks, which were taken separately from the pen they had 
been kept in, and each in turn killed by hand a few minutes 
before it was hoisted up by the kite. 
They were, therefore, practically live birds as regards the 
penetration of the shot-pellets that struck them.i Previous 
' They were, however, in one way more vulnerable to the shot than if they had 
been live birds on the wing. The latter would have had their breast- feathers laid 
compact and close to their bodies, and for this reason their plumage would have 
offered a little more resistance to the pellets. As the dead birds were suspended 
directly above the shooter, the shot struck them just as it would have done live 
birds in the same position — a very usual one to kill them in, and one that resembles 
that of the stationary birds as regards the angle and effect of the shot striking. 
66 
