8 
HIGH PHEASANTS 
the shot-charge went behind the bull's-eye I am treating the 
latter as if it were a pheasant coming overhead towards me. 
I found that at 40 yds. high the shot-charge was considerably 
influenced by a strong wind, and in order to centralise it on the 
target I had to move the bull's-eye more forward, or to windward, 
as compared with what I had to do in a light breeze. A high 
and fast pheasant is difficult enough to kill without considering 
a wind allowance, which a shooter cannot well do at the moment 
of aiming ; still, this shows that if a wind exists,^ especially a side 
one, it is a factor in the killing or missing of an overhead bird. 
or away from the perpendicular, when the recoil took place ; and that, if an 
overhead stationary pheasant had been shot at, the charge would have been 
rather behind the bird towards its tail. From this it certainly appears that 
in the case of a high bird there is, as I have before pointed out, a forward 
allowance required of the gun itself, independently of the one naturally given 
to the bird by the shooter. Though this forward allowance that belongs to the 
gun cannot be exactly stated, it suggests that a more ample one than is usually 
given, as judged only from the pace and height of a bird, may meet with success 
when failures to kill occur. 
^ I naturally could not stand, when taking perpendicular shots, except with 
the wind blowing over me to or from the target in line with the bull's-eye. The 
wind was, therefore, always directly with or against the flight of a bird, if the 
bull's-eye had been one, according to whether the head of the bird was towards or 
from me. 
A charge of shot is far more likely to intercept an overhead pheasant if it is 
flying diiectly with or against the wind, than it would if the wind was a side 
one, or across the mark ; i.e. in the case of the target at a right angle to the 
string of the kite, which, of course, could not occur. 
