THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
and swinging the gun well in front of her nose, the shot will be instantly 
fatal. When standing outside a covert on a shooting day one may often 
see a hare leap on to the bank and pause to look forward before jumping 
the ditch. A juvenile sportsman will instantly throw up his gun preparatory 
to taking aim, when the hare, seeing the movement, will slip back into 
covert, and try some other exit. What the shooter should do is to remain 
perfectly still until the hare has made up her mind what she will do. Let 
her come out and shape her course, which will generally be at right angles 
to the wood she is leaving; but should she run alongside it, that is, parallel 
with the ditch, beware of shooting while she is between you and the next 
gun on the side to which she is moving. This will apply also if the shooter 
is standing in a grass ride in a wood. Nothing is more dangerous than to 
shoot at a hare (or rabbit, as the case may be) running straight down a 
ride either towards or from the next gun. The risk of a pellet glancing 
from a stone may mean the loss of a friend’s eye. And yet accidents of 
this kind are constantly happening through youthful impetuosity, or reck- 
less shooting. 
J. E. HARTING. 
200 
