THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
eight, the guns should move up one place, and if uneven they should 
move up two places after each drive. This will ensure each gun having 
a run of all the numbers, and where there are several return drives this 
is sometimes important, in order to equalize the chances. 
Where there are only a few drivers, two intelligent mounted grooms 
will be of great assistance in getting round large stubbles, or bringing in 
birds that have broken out some considerable distance. 
Each gun should remember what birds he has knocked down, in 
order that he may know what he has got to pick up ; when they are 
retrieved they should be placed near his stick for convenience of col- 
lecting after each drive, and being checked by the man with the game 
cart. If this is not done it sometimes happens that several are left on the 
ground to rot. , 
Here, again, an old, or for that matter a young keeper with a brace of 
retrieving spaniels will be invaluable to hunt the ground thoroughly and 
look for any birds that may not have been found by the guns ; quite in- 
dependently of the humane side of the question, if there are many rats, 
hooded crows, or even pigs about, it will often be too late to search the 
ground on the following day, for in many cases only the stripped and 
mangled carcasses will be found. An intelligent keeper or two lying in 
a fence out of shot and out of sight behind the guns, will assist greatly in 
recovering towered or pricked birds that might otherwise be lost. 
The practice of keepers and spectators sitting under the hedge in front 
of the guns is a very dangerous one, no matter how high the hedge may 
be, it very often puts a man quite off his shooting, he has so many 
additional dangerous angles to bear in mind. (See fig. below.) It is not 
so much those who are sitting in his immediate front who are in danger 
from him, but those farther away down the hedge to his right or left. 
All lookers on should sit on one flank or the other in line, or on the ground 
behind the guns. 
HEDGE 
From this sketch it will be readily seen what a number of extremely 
dangerous angles there are, when spectators sit in front of the guns. 
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