34 
HIGH PHEASANTS : 
front of you than is the general custom.^ You then also 
have a chance of a second barrel, should you miss with 
your first, before the bird is past and done with. 
We all know the high pheasant that appears to be sailing 
towards one with a slow and easy flight, with apparently plenty 
of time to shoot at it ; and we all know the same bird when it 
is just overhead, and seems (for it does not really do so) to 
double its pace and pass like a flash, giving scarce time to take 
an aim, which, by the way, is then often a consciously incorrect 
one ! A pheasant does not fly like a wild duck, with its neck 
stretched out as straight and stiff as the neck of a bottle : for 
when in full flight it carries its neck slightly folded near its 
body. You can test this by laying a pheasant sideways on a 
table, and placing its head and neck in the line of what its 
horizontal flight would be if alive — and as it would naturally 
carry it. 
If you go a few yards away and kneel down, you will then 
see the body of the pheasant in the position it would appear 
as a straight overhead shot. You will notice that the neck of 
the bird is a good deal protected by its breast and crop. You 
will also realise that in this position its breast-bone and the 
thick pectoral muscles on either side of it, are shields that 
guard its vital organs, such as the heart and lungs. These 
organs and the head and neck are more open to damage from 
shot-pellets if the bird is fired at when a few yards in front, 
than if it is taken when straight overhead. 
If a pheasant is 28 yds. above ground and flying towards 
a shooter, and he fires at it 10 yds. in front of him, it is only 
4^ ft. farther away than if it were shot at directly overhead, and 
^ See remarks (p. 74) on the much harder blow that shot-pellets give an 
approaching bird as compared to one that has passed. 
