RABBIT SHOOTING 
makes so much less noise that rabbits are not nearly so much scared by 
the report. The comparative lightness of a small-bore single rifle and the 
rapidity with which it may be fired and reloaded when fitted with a modern 
ejector makes it an extremely handy little weapon for the purpose. More- 
over, it affords the shooter no end of amusement and a greater test of 
skill than a shot gun; for it is obviously more difficult to hit a rabbit with 
a small bullet at sixty or seventy yards than it is to knock it over with 
an ounce of No. 6 shot at five and twenty. 
When shooting rabbits with a rifle, a wattled hurdle may be put up here 
and there on open ground where the rabbits lie out, under cover of which 
they may be approached, or waited for within range. Their sense of smell 
and hearing being very acute, they should always be approached up wind. 
Another plan is to sit up in a tree, for by being above them they are less 
likely to wind you. Success, of course, will depend in a great measure 
on the skill of the shooter, coupled, perhaps, with a certain amount of 
luck in getting shots at short ranges. Something also will depend on the 
distance at which a rabbit is fired at. It is not every bullet that finds its 
billet. When shooting rabbits in this way it is well to bear in mind that 
the dead ones should be allowed to lie where they fall until it is time to 
go home; for if you leave your place of ambush periodically to pick them 
up, the chances of sport will be materially lessened. 
J. E. HARTING. 
FF 
217 
