HARE SHOOTING 
In the first quarter of the sixteenth century several kinds of sporting 
guns were known in France, and in 1515 the use of them, whether by 
gentlemen or other persons, was interdicted within two leagues of any 
forest belonging to the Crown. A little later, namely, in 1546, there was a 
general prohibition in France against carrying fire-arms and shooting 
indiscriminately, more particularly with arquebuses.* After 1554, how- 
ever, the use of this weapon became more general, and it was apparently 
about this time that it began to be used for killing game in England. 
The following letter from Sir Edmund Bedingfeld to Lord Bath, written 
in 1548, about the time of the passing of an Act for regulating the shooting 
with “hand -guns” and “hail shot,” shows pretty plainly that it did not 
find favour with at least one class of sportsmen, namely, the falconers: 
“ My good Lorde, I beseech you to take knowledge to move as you 
shall think good for a redresse to be had for such persons as dayly 
do shoote in hande-gonnes^ and beat out the fowles in ryvers and pittes, 
so as ther is no fowle that do remayne in the countrye. A man disposed 
to have a flight w‘ hawks may seeke tenn myles ere he fynde one 
coople of fowle to fly at, wheare in all yeres past there shulde have 
been founde in the same places v' coople of fowle. I have spoken 
to the Clarke of the peace within Norfolk, who asserteyned me by his 
booke not to be above the number of iij persons entered into his book 
for to shoote w* gonnes, but surelie I think ther be in this shyre 
that daylie doth exercyse and practyse shooting at fowl w‘ there 
gonnes not so fewe as three score, of which number I cannot heare 
of any that may spend of lands being their owne above iiij score lb 
by yere. If this be not reamyded you w* all the rest of the nobilitie 
may put foorth your hawkes to breede, and keep no more. And thus I 
beseeche God to have yo" Lordshippe and my good Lady your wyffe 
in moche honor. Yours to comaunde 
EDMUNDE BEDINGFELD. 
To the Right Honourable and my singular 
good Lorde, my Lord Bathe. 
From this account we may well imagine the commotion that would 
be caused at this period by the general use of “ hande -gonnes ” throughout 
the country, and doubtless sitting hares were as likely as not to suffer 
by their introduction. Fortunately those early guns were more or less 
of clumsy construction, slow ignition, and uncertain effect; so that unless 
Ernest Julien, La Chasse, son histoire et sa legislation, 1868, p. 183. 
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