206 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
Gun Rooiift Topics* 
Live Pigeon Shooting. 
The advent of February gives a truce to the pheasant and 
the partridge, and signifies the beginning in earnest of the sea- 
son of the trapshooter, which may be said to open with the 
decision of the Grand Prix competition at Monte Carlo. The 
spring and summer months, when the game birds are breeding 
in peace and quietness, are the time of travail for the blue- 
rock pigeons that have to bear the brunt of the long campaign 
against them at the various gun clubs in London and through- 
out the provinces. Unlike game shooting, the shooting of 
trapped pigeons has many opponents, who have made many 
determined attacks upon the pastime, but without success. 
Threatened lives live long, and it cannot be denied that live 
pigeon shooting at the clubs still lives, if it can scarcely be 
said to thrive as it did, say, fifty years ago, when the cream 
of English sportsmen took pleasure in competing with each 
other at the Old Hats or the Red House, or even at Hornsey 
Rise. We have lately been reading some of the records of these 
old competitions and matches in the fifties and sixties, and they 
are very instructive and interesting even to present-day gunners. 
They prove, for one thing, the immense strides we have made 
in the accessories of sport with the gun; they also show very 
conclusively what splendid shots were many of the predecessors 
of present-day trapshooters. The most interesting historian of 
pigeon shooting in England is Lord William Lennox, who 
writes with all the enthusiasm of a keen gunner who was in 
the thick of it about fifty years ago. Writing, as he did, be- 
fore the adoption of driving of winged game to any extent, he 
was right in describing a morning's live pigeon shooting at 
Hornsey Wood, the Rosemary, or elsewhere, as "furnishing ex- 
cellent practice to all classes of gunners from the youth fresh 
frorri school to the more experienced marksman, who can re- 
member" what he calls "the good old days of flint and steel." 
He maintains that to make a man a quick shot at that time 
there were few better plans than to let him practice at six 
traps, two of which should contain a pigeon or a sparrow each, 
the uncertainty as to which trap would be pulled making "the 
gunner keep his eyes open." Further, he held that shooting 
at pigeons improved men for general game shooting as then 
pursued, giving coolness, decision, and, above all, quickness, 
which, in his lordship's opinion, are the first characteristics of 
a really good shot, by which we see that he means a man who 
gets his gun off at everything within thirty yards, and kills 
two out of three fired at. 
Handicapping. 
Sweepstakes and matches were the fashion fifty years ago in 
pigeon shooting, handicapping by distance from the traps being 
at that time unknown. Any bore of gun was permitted ap- 
parently, and any loading. At the Red House, 10-bores, 8-bores 
and even 6-bores were to be seen in use, which led, though, to 
the sport dying away at that spot, the whole shooting being 
left in the hands of a few crack shots with whom no new man 
had any chance. It was in consequence of a match shot be- 
tween Mr. Dudley Ward with a 10-bore and Mr. Gilbert Heathcote 
with a 14-bore that the idea occurred to Mr. Frank Heathcote, 
as an old racing man, to get up a handicap by distance, stipu- 
lating for 12-bores and an ounce and an eighth of shot. He had 
forty-four subscribers, of whom twenty-nine came to the post, 
and the handicap was won by Mr. Stirling Crawfurd, who was 
handicapped at 31%yds., Mr. R. Bateson coming in second, and 
Mr. C. Molynaux third. There were more gunners shooting to- 
gether • in this first handicap than had ever been known before, 
and Heathcote was complimented all round. The second handi- 
cap had fifty-four subscribers, and was won by Colonel Annesley 
at 29%yds., Mr. F. Craven being second, and Mr. D. Damer 
third. The champion of all pigeon shots in these days was 
Lord Huntingfield, handicapped at 32i/^yds. from the traps, but 
in the first and second handicaps shot he was easily beaten, 
owing to his distance. Lord William Lennox describes his 
style as perfect. "Legs level, and wide apart — a cigar in his 
mouth — he stands at his post like a falcon looking at his prey. 
He clinks his trigger two or three times, raises the gun once 
or twice to the shoulder to see all is right, looks straight at the 
center, coolly takes his 'weed' out of his mouth, places it be- 
tween the little finger and next of his left hand, says, 'Pull,' and 
is on the bird in a second. When he kills, which is pretty often, 
the bird has all the shot— no winging — no rising again, dead 
he falls, spreads his wings, and dies." In the third handicap 
there were sixty subscribers, and the winner was Captain Wynd- 
ham, 28^yds. ; the Hon. G. Craven, 26%yds., second, and the Earl 
of Bective, 27i/^yds., third. A breechloader was used by a Mr. 
Robinson for the first time at this shoot, and dice were first 
thrown to decide the traps to be pulled, also the suggestion of 
Mr. Frank Heathcote. The result was that thereafter handi- 
caps increased up to an average of nearly one hundred sub- 
scribers, though it. was regarded as impossible to do justice to 
more than sixty starters. This was in 1860, at Hornsey Wood, 
which by that time had succeeded the Old Hats at Ealing, and 
the Red House at Battersea. 
The Best Shots Then. 
The best pigeon shots forty-five years ago, placed as nearly as 
possible in their order of merit by Lord William Lennox, were 
Lord Huntingfield, quick and perfect; Mr. Stirling Crawfurd, 
steady; Hon. Dudley Ward, a steady, cool shot; Mr. R. Bateson, 
quick, gun too much up; Hon. G. Heathcote, quick, excellent 
with his second barrel; Hon. Captain Wyndham, perfect master 
of his gun; Mr. S. Lucy, quick and nervous; Hon. F. Craven, 
quiet, but quick; Lord Stormont, good; Mr, A. Walsh, steady; 
Colonel Annesley, very quick, too quick; Sir T. Moncrieff, 
quick; Captain Berkeley, quick; Lord Bective, good; Mr. E. 
Batsqn, quiet and quick; Mr. A. Wigram, quiet and steady; Mr. 
E. Coke, very quick and brilliant; Mr. F. Milbanke, steady and 
sure; Colonel Jenyns, quiet; Hon. A. Eraser, quiet; Mr. D. 
Damer, good, but holds his gun a little too low; and so on for 
another • score of names, all of them crack pigeons shots. Lord 
Hartington being described as "better at game than at blue- 
rocks," and Lord Sefton as quick, but requiring to take a little 
more care in taking aim. The most curious thing about pigeon 
shooting before a crowd of spectators, even though most of the 
crowd may be personal friends of the shooters, is the extra- 
ordinary manner in which the desire to excel renders men un- 
steady. Men who shoot well in small- sweepstakes get so excited 
in a match that they cannot win; the eyes are straight, but the 
hands will not answer them. Other excitable men get still more 
excited in a match, but shoot none the worse for it, fighting, we 
presume, successfully against it. Men are differently consti- 
tuted; some men perform better the closer the competitioc and 
the iieavier the prize money. In matches, it must be remem- 
bered, th^ birds are the very best that can be selected; whereas 
in a large handicap it is impossible to get the quantity required 
of the very best birds. This makes the winning more of a 
chance, a fast bird after a slow one puzzling the shooter, however 
cool and experienced he may be. So it is that some men excel 
in sweepstakes and some in matches, though the best shots, 
in spite of all obstacles, usually come to the front at the finish, 
forty years ago at Hornsey Wood very much as they do now 
at Hurlingham and the Gun Club, where the sport is still carried 
on in the same good old-fashioned manner, notwithstanding the 
fact that the shooting of winged game has gone far ahead of it, 
both in skill and results, through the universal popularity of 
the modern method of driving. Could it not be possible to 
imitate driving at clubs for live pigeon shooting, just as driving 
now' is so faithfully reproduced at the various schools and 
parks by means of inanimate birds? 
Modern Gun Clubs. 
Though a hundred crack shots or more may meet each other 
next week on the grounds of the Monte Carlo Gun Club, it must 
be admitted even by its best friends that live pigeon shooting 
has greatly declined in popularity since the days we have been 
describing at Hornsey Wood. Even during the International 
week at Hurlingham and the Gun Club, when competitors are 
gathered at the traps from all parts of the earth, there are now- 
adays seldom more than fifty or sixty entrants for each compe- 
tition, a number that forty years ago was often daubled at an 
ordinary meeting. That shooting should have increased so much 
in popularity, while live pigeon shooting has undoubtedly de- 
creased, is mainly due, it is thought, to the fact that the latter 
has not kept up to date in its methods so as to afford .some- 
thing coming as near as possible to driven winged game. The 
pigeons are sprung from the traps just as they were fifty years 
ago, or nearly so, when game-driving was unknown, and all 
winged game of every kind were shot over dogs. Then the in- 
aniniate pigeon of clay can be sent over the guns in imitation 
as closely as may be of driving; but experts in live pigeon shoot- 
ing one and all set their faces against any attempt to send the 
trapped live pigeon over the guns. It would, of course, be 
difficulty to drive live pigeons, but difficulties only exist to be 
surmounted where we are in earnest. If a wild duck can be 
driven with accuracy over the gunner, what can there be in a 
wild bluerock pigeon that would prevent its being similarly 
treated with some care and skill on the part of the trappers', and 
an improvement, if necessary, in the apparatus for trapping? 
There would be much greater variety at any rate, in the present- 
ment of live pigeons sent over the guns than in the present 
very primitive mode of opening the door of a trap, and simply 
letting the birds fly out as best they may under a shower of 
leaden pellets. Monotonous to many gunners is such shooting. 
Apart from all humanitarian scriples, they do not care to 
cultivate skill in achieving success at it. But if their birds were 
sent to them from behind a wooden erection, say, six feet in 
height or more, so that they could get fully on the wing before 
they were seen, and from there be induced to fly over the guns, 
as would winged game, there could be little question of the 
greater interest imported into the shooting. Perhaps we may 
some day see some such desirable variation on the monotony 
inseparable from live pigeon shooting as conducted even at 
Monte Carlo. 
Anierican Gun Qubs. 
While the term "gun club" with us invariably conveys the 
idea of trapshooting, it has a very different signification on the 
other side of the Atlantic. There it means an association of 
ganje shooters, joined together to preserve large tracts of good 
shooting ground, on which a club house is built for the ac- 
cominodation of the members shooting. The quarry is not the 
bluerock pigeon trapped, but the wild duck and the quail free 
to come and -go only to be found and flushed by the use of 
pointers or setters. In Baily's for February is an excellent des- 
cription of these American shooting clubs written over the well- 
known initials "G. T. T. B." The writer of it evidently looks 
to such institutions, which are rapidly increasing every year in 
the United States, for the future preservation of American small 
game, which for some years past has been threatened with almost 
absolute extinction in all accessible regions. In fact, winged 
game has already been almost entirely exterminated in large 
tracts of country, where State laws restricting the slaughter of 
it have been passed too late to save it. "Those who profess to 
admire the freedom of American shooting," writes "G. T. T. B.," 
"are not very practical, for the freedom only exists, first, where 
there is no game, and second, at such distances from habita- 
tions as to make expeditions after game both very troublesome 
and very expensive. For a New Yorker to get free shooting at 
quail (partridges^ he must make a journey of nearly a thousand 
miles. Even when this is done there is always this difficulty in 
America: where free game abounds, there is no hotel accommo- 
dation, and where the latter exists there is no game." It is 
here very evidently that the club and the club-house come in so 
conveniently for the American sportsman who combines with his 
fellow-sportsmen to form a club for the preserving and shoot- 
ing game. It has often been suggested that our English gun 
clubs might very well extend their programmes beyond trap- 
shooting to the renting and preserving of good game shootings, 
letting their members take part in the shooting of game in 
rotation or by other arrangement, leaving trapshooting entirely 
for the close game season. Such clubs, it is believed, would be 
even more successful on this side than in the wilds of America, 
where they seem to have recently so greatly caught on.— County 
Gentleman. ' ' 
Union Gun Club. 
The programme of the Union Gun Club of San Francisco, Cal., 
for April 30, provides a live-bird and picnic shoot. The club 
shoot for members only, entrance fee, 50 cents, 25 tax-gets, 16yds., 
has $400 to be divided every shoot. Rose system. Four classes, as 
fellows: Champion, first, second, third; $10 in each class, divided 
on the basis of 5, 3, 2. , 
Second event, medal event, for members; entrance 80 cents; 
four gold medals, value $50. Four classes, as follows: Champion, 
first, second, and tliird. All contestants to begin at 16yd. mark; 
winners of medals will shoot from 18yds.; if winning medal a 
second time, winner will shoot from 29yd. mark. Winners to 
wear medal during the month. Medals to become permanent prop- 
erty of members winning same the greatest number of times dur- 
ing the season. Mr. A. M. Shields donates $40 to be divided into 
four classes to the second high gun in each class, to be decided 
at the final shoot. 
Third event, Secret Handicap for Ttickey & Kline trophy- 
silver cup, valued at $50. Limit, 25 targets; entrance 50 cents, for 
members only. Trophy to become permanent property at final 
shoot of season. In case of ties at final shoot, contestants shoot 
at the original handicap for that day. Every score counts. One 
back score can be made up in this event as specified heretofore. 
Foiirtfe event. — Open to all; entrance, 75 cents; 6 pair doubles 
from 14yds., 15 singles from 16yds. Class sliooting, three moneys. 
Club adds money at each shoot. 
Special Event.— Open to all; entrance $1; 25 targets^ All con- 
testants shoot the first 10 targets from 16yd. mark and handicapped 
as follows. Contestants breaking 9 and 10 shoot remainder from 
20yds. Contestants breaking 7 and 8, shoot remainder from 18yds. 
Contestants breaking 5 and 6, shoot remainder from 16yds. Ties 
in this event to be shot at 25 targets at the original handicap. 
Entrance fee, 50 cents. 
The officers of the club are: C. A. Muller, President; Dr. W. 
A. Hansen, Vice-President; H. P. Jacobsen, Captain; T. L. 
Lewis, Secretary, 86-88 First street, San Francisco. 
IN NEW JERSEY. 
rludson Gon Club. 
Jersey City, N. J.— Find scores herewith of shoot held March 
5, at Hudson Gun Club. Each event was at 25 targets: 
Events: 1 2 3 4 5 Events: 1 2 3 4 5 
Schorty 19 23 21 21 22 Cocklin 15 19 .. 16 .. 
Piercy 17 2a 23 21 21 Finley 11 18 17 14 17 
Staples 25 22 24 24 23 Akers 1617 .. 20 .. 
Schoverling 20 22 20 18 20 H Pearsall 13 13 
Scheubell 13 15 17 19 19 W Pearsall 24 21 .. 19 .. 
Gille 20 17 .. 15 .. Kurzell 11 12 
C V L 18 17 .. 16 Ferger 9 .. .. 13 .. 
Jenkins 15 12 .. 18 .. Evans 20 22 21 19 21 
Cottrell 21 15 20 21 20 Wright 18 20 
Bolat 12 13 15 11 15 ^ 
Jas Hughes, Sec'y. 
Montclair Gun Club. iBH ' 
Montclair, N. J., March 4.— Nine events were run off this after- 
noon, over 1,800 targets being thrown and seventeen men partici- 
pating. 
Mr. J. S. Fanning, trade representative, was present and shot 
through five events. 
Events Nos. 2 and 3, 25 targets each, unknown angles, were won 
by Messrs. C. L. Bush and F. W. Moffett, who each took a 
box of fine cigars as a reward for their skill. 
In event No. 4, Mr. J. S. Fanning broke 15 straight, making 
the only perfect score of the afternoon. Mr. Fanning was also 
high man in event 6, 12 pairs of doubles, breaking 17 out of a 
possible 24. 
Mr. e. L. Bush did particularly well, breaking 154 out of a 
possible 175, or 80 per cent. ■ 
Events: 12 8 4 
Targets: 
6 7 8 9 
25 25 25 15 10 24 25 25 25 
5 .. 22 23 23 
8 11 .. 19 21 
8 14 22 19 . . 
8 10 ■ . . . . . . 
9 17 
8 16 23 23 20 
9 10 
6 .. 
19 
16 
16 
C L Bush 21 24 22 14 
i W Moffett 15 22 23 12 
P H Cockefair 20 16 21 13 
W T Wallace 17 12 15 10 
J S Fanning 22 24 15 
C W Kendall 20 18 18 11 
G Batten 19 14 21 10 
J Batten 17 15 13 12 
C Babcock 21 18 20 7 
T Dbremus 18 15 10 
G Boxall 18 20 10 
I S Crane 20 .. 9 
E Winslow 20 16 9 
K H Robinson 16 H 
B T Bush 5 
W Rohn 4 
T Badgley 6 1 
Event No. 6 was at 12 pairs of doubles. 
Edward Winslow, Sec'y. 
North River Gun Club. 
Edgewater, N. J., March 4.— Event No. 3, final shoot for Muller- 
ite medal, won by Mr. F. Truax for the third time. Events 4 and 
5, 50 target, handicap event for solid gold watch charm, won by 
Mr. C. Richter. 
Targets: ; lo 15 25 25 25 25 15 
Jap, 0 9 15 22 21 23 22 .. 
i)r Richter, 8 8 10 20 21 21 
C E Eickhoft, 8 .- 7 12 19 16 14 21 .. 
1; Truax, 4 7 12 23 21 24 22 10 
K Reynolds, 6 7 10 19 19 19 . . . . 
1- Vosselman, 10 5 13 14 18 16 .. 
Bingmann, 0 8 12 19 20 18 25 .'. 
H B Williams, 0 7 13 16 20 17 
McCJane, 0 5 9 13 12 15 .. .. 
iJr Paterno, 20 4 8 12 11 17 14 8 
S Allison, 8 20 19 14 
H Schramm, 10 .. 19 14 18 
Dr R E Paterno, 0 13 18 .. " 
R E Bingman, 0 .. .. 22 20 . '. .'. . '. 
Jas. R. Merrill, Sec'v 
New Jersey State Sportsmen's Association. Qfj 
When this Association claimed dates of June 14 to 16 for its 
annual tournament, no definite announcement had been made for 
the New York State shoot, which is now advertised for June 13 
to 16, the dates conflicting. 
In deference. Therefore, to the wishes of the older organization, 
the executive commhtee of the New Jersey State Sportsmen's 
Association has decided to change its dates to the week before, 
June 6, 7 and 8, and will, if possible, arrange an extra date for a 
team match between the New York and New Jersey amateur 
shooters, the same as was done at the last tournament. 
■ Secretary. 
Wihnington Gun Club. 
Wilmington, Del., March. 6.— Editor Forest and Stream: You 
know that the first annual spring tournament of the Delaware 
State Trapshooters' League is to be held under the auspices of 
the Wilmington Gun Club on April 12-13 next. The present 
grounds of the club are altogether too small for any large tourna- 
ments, and the club house is too limited for the accommodation 
of anything like the number of members that ought to be present 
at any practice shoot. The club has ninety-nine members on its 
list how, and of course needs more spacious grounds than it did 
when they had only ten members. 
It has been decided to move to larger grounds, which have 
been secured along the line of the Brandywine Springs trolley, 
about twenty minutes at the outside from Market street, and it 
is fully expected that an up-to-date club house and all the neces- 
sary appurtenances will be in position before the date of the 
shoot. X. 
Bonesteel Gun Club. 
BoJjESTEEL, S. D., March L— The club assembled at 1 o'clock 
this afternoon, and the following gentlemen took part in the 
shooting. Le Roy Leach, R. B. Forbes, E. L. Forbes, M. Wood- 
ring, Wm. Bonekemper, W. A. Leach. Following are the scores: 
Le Roy Leach shot at 38, broke 85; W. A. Leach 25, 24; Wood- 
ring 37, 23; Bonekemper 25, 12; R. E. Forbes 25, 10; E. L. Forbes 
15, 7. 
The Messrs. Forbes and Mr. Bonekemper are all beginners at 
trapshooting, and show an earnestness which will probably make 
them run much better scores as the season gets fairly well opened. 
It is the intenticn of the club to hold their regular weekly shoot 
I'hursday afternoons hereafter. 
W. A. LsACH, Sec'y, 
