IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 
73 
Another system is to aim at an imaginary point in the 
air which the shooter supposes to be a certain fixed distance 
in front of an overhead or a crossing bird. Here we have 
trouble, as it is most difficult to shoot several feet ahead of 
fast-flying game and snap off a gun into space without 
some amount of hesitation, chiefly caused by a questioning in 
the mind as to distance and accuracy of aim ; and, however 
slight such hesitation, it means a trifling dwell on the trigger. 
This slight dwell on the trigger allows the bird time to fly 
from its original position several feet nearer to the point ahead 
of it which the shooter fires his gun at, and hence, perhaps, 
the bird does not receive half the forward allowance necessary, 
and a miss behind is a frequent result. 
If a shooter fires his gun at an imaginary point in the air 
in front of a bird crossing to one side of him, he is very apt 
to shoot too high or too low, unless he is able — a difficult 
matter — to accurately realise the inclination of its line of 
flight ; for when the bird has flown as far as the point where 
the shot-charge is designed to intercept it, it may be several 
feet above or below this point. 
One of the very few shooters I ever knew who could success- 
fully snap off a gun ahead of a high or a crossing pheasant, and 
who was also a fine shot, was the late Duke of Wellington. 
The Duke used to keep his gun down till his bird was just 
within range. He then put his gun up and fired forward of 
his bird in an instant, as quick as one takes a snapshot at a 
disappearing snipe, and at the moment the stock of the gun 
touched his shoulder. 
I was never able to detect the least sign of swing or dwell 
on the trigger, and yet I have seen him kill a couple of very 
high pheasants in the time it would occupy an ordinary good 
