|ioi/dG‘ BrVXE XXXIA* 
‘ ^ ‘ gjjooqug ^hu‘^? ^loijj gjjooqug bouA’ 
]^LOID gjornG^? ,^eGUf]GlUJTn8 ^P8P‘ 
py^ 
THE GUN AT HOME AKD ABROAD 
bore. Shooting into a llocis 0 f rising or fiyissg seems to be ,mal,niy 
contemplated. For crossing ^hots, the foHpwitig advice is given: “ If the 
Birds be out of reocb, lire ae at a mark abmt six yards before, and then the 
Sfcot will mk© thein as th^' are passing/-*' ■ . , 
A book of rather later date, the Complete Sportentan,*’ con- 
tains a chapter “Of mooting, Flying, “ which opens as 
'foUo'WS; “Go, early «o ^ -with yon some 'rum in a wicker 
'bottle that a \ . hot da not take too much, for 
.too m^^’h Ck'^r directions are: “ Ram.; 
th«- .V .-r iightiyi «^''the charge be 
. eecnring the .with tow. When you 
.-s^vv- Sirf.-c';, and. keep yoiir teotp^ay* ontufSed as 
A v-ai-i rtot till the latter part of the eighteenth century that the art of 
^dtootmg d.ying generally cultivated in this country, Daniel , ih his 
Rural Sports ’* (ISO!), says that within sixty years of the time when he- 
wrote “an indiyidyat %vho exercised the Art of Shooting Birds on the Wing 
was considered as performing something extraordinary, and many persons 
requested to attend his Excursions, that they might be Eyewitnesses of it. 
Since that period, the practice has been more common, and is at present 
almost iimversal; so that .I,ads of sixteen bring down their bu’ds'with all 
due accuracy,'’ Shootixig, in lactT became a rage in England towards the 
end of the eighteenth century and in the beginning of the nineteenth. The 
Sportsmvu /3 Directory of 1792 says: “ The r-age for shooting was never 
at a higher pitch than at present; and, as the me of shootmg flying is 
arrived, at tolerable perfection, perhaps there needs no additional in- 
struction towards atmihilatlng the different species of. game.’* It was 
during this period that English gunmakesrs at hist began to lead, instead^ 
of foUow iog. those of oi-her nations* ' 
'■ 
It had long mcii r^werial of the best barrels 
old .borseiiasi smb»,. 0^^^- ^ good quality already much 
worked. 'Ximm were into this cbrmtry from 'Holland, , 
They wei'C scanted m the early part of the nineteenth 
century, mixed wifli a ps'ppovtiim of scraps of steel, the latter bein#, 
usuaily three-eighilia \lSm whole, A mass of about 40 lb. Weigl^' 
394 ■ / ' . ■ 
