RABBIT SHOOTING 
N ot until the autumn leaves have commenced to fall, and 
briar and bramble have begun to look thin in the coverts 
can rabbit shooting be indulged in with much advantage. 
The undergrowth will be too thick for any game to move 
through it rapidly, and the rabbits can only creep about, 
scarcely showing themselves and affording but poor chances 
of a shot across the rides. For so long as there is any covert they will stick 
to it, and until the underwood gets thinner they will double back and defy 
the most strenuous efforts of beaters to get them out. Nevertheless, long 
before the big woods can be beaten, rabbits will afford some amusement 
in the hedgerows amongst old pastures, if worked with one or two good 
spaniels and a gun on either side to shoot those that can be forced to bolt. 
Again, when the corn is ripe, and the reaping machine is at work, going 
round and round the field, laying swathe after swathe, and gradually 
reducing the area of standing grain, the rabbits, instead of bolting, will 
work towards the centre, availing themselves to the last of the little shelter 
that remains, until the reapers, at the bidding of the sportsmen, stop the 
horses, and, constituting themselves beaters for the occasion, put out 
rabbit after rabbit towards the expectant gunners. Thus pressed, they 
will make in fine style for the nearest hedgerow until turned head over 
heels by a well-directed charge of No. 6 shot. In this way a score of rabbits 
may often be killed in half an hour by a single gun, while if two guns are 
posted on opposite sides the fun will be all the merrier while it lasts. 
The farmer will be well pleased, and the harvesters too, if they receive, 
as they should do, a rabbit or two apiece for their pains. 
Pending the advent of covert shooting there are few pleasanter ways 
of spending an afternoon than by shooting rabbits on a furze-clad common, 
either with dogs or beaters, or both. It is an advantage to use spaniels 
that can retrieve, for a wounded rabbit will often crawl away into thick 
furze where, without the aid of a dog, it is difficult to find. The stuff is often 
so dense that it is impossible to see the surface of the ground, and many 
a rabbit hit hard, or, as sometimes happens, killed by the dogs, is left 
behind for want of one that can bring it out. For this purpose spaniels are 
preferable to terriers, and, being less excitable, they are not given to 
wander so far from the guns. Their longer coats, too, serve them in good 
stead in the sharp -pointed furze brakes which they are compelled to face. 
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