IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 15 
gun, whatever the charge or boring. I have occasionally seen 
a partridge — a small and tender bird compared to a cock 
pheasant — knocked over at 60 estimated paces when flying low 
over roots, and when, of course, it offered its most vulnerable 
parts to the pellets ; but a perpendicular partridge at 60 yds. 
would be quite another thing, owing to various causes which 
I shall explain. 
At 50 yds. high it is just possible a pheasant might be 
stunned by a pellet in the head, though this is unlikely to happen. 
At 40 yds. high a pheasant should be killed about once in 
half a dozen shots, or perhaps stunned by a chance pellet in 
the head. It might also, not seldom, be slightly wounded 
without stopping its flight. On the other hand, a low-flying 
pheasant crossing at 40 yds. may fairly often be killed. At 
30 yds. high a pheasant should be killed every time, provided 
the aim is correct, even with a cylinder-gun. 
In all cases I rely upon the bird being hit with a few pellets 
about the head and neck when I state it might be killed ; and 
I must emphasise the fact that these deductions are taken from 
patterns and penetrations obtained in perpendicular target 
practice, and not from a flying bird at the altitudes named. 
Anyhow, it is evident that, however accurate the aim, a really 
high overhead pheasant is a considerable more diflicult bird to 
kill than the same bird would be at an equal distance from 
the shooter, but at a lower altitude. 
It should be borne in mind that, in all the perpendicular shots 
given, the mark was stationary and not flying rapidly forward. 
For this reason more pellets are recorded on a target at an 
