28 
HIGH PHEASANTS : 
not. C and D both said they heard their shots strike distinctly, 
and impHed that anyone must be more or less deaf who didn't 
do so, but were careful to explain that their hearing was 
exceptionally acute. So the matter rested, two for, two 
against, and one doubtful. 
The same evening consternation ensued, for the head-keeper, 
who had fetched the cartridges from the gunroom in the 
morning, came with a long face to his master to explain that 
they were taken out of a small card box, the lid of which 
he had just noticed was marked with the words ' Loaded 
with fine sand.' 
It so happened that the schoolboy son of the house was 
an ardent collector of natural history objects, and had 
especially ordered a few cartridges to be loaded with fine 
sand, instead of shot, with a view, during the past summer, 
of shooting, without spoiling as specimens, some very fine 
dragon-flies that haunted the lake in the grounds ! 
Up to a range of 30 yds. it is doubtful if the striking of 
the shot is ever heard, as it would reach the bird, and the 
sound of its striking return to the shooter, practically during 
the noise caused by the explosion of the cartridge. As a bird 
is not like a reverberating sheet of tin, the farther off the 
former is from the shooter when he kills it, the less is he hkely 
to hear the very few pellets of shot that strike it, especially as the 
striking-force of the latter is decreased according to distance. 
Anyhow, if a shooter insists that he heard his shot-charge 
strike his bird, he may usually feel assured it was beyond 
fair killing range. 
