118 
FRANK FORESTER’S FIELD SPORTS. 
perhaps as good a criterion as any, is the seeing the eyes of the 
bird at which you are shooting, if it be a fowl of any size. This 
I have heard old baymen speak of, as their test of a bird being 
within fair shot, though were I to wait till a Plover’s eyes were 
visible to me, I should not fire a shot in a twelve month. 
In this, however, as in every thing else connected with field 
sports, a little practice will soon give facility, and until that is 
obtained, as good a way as any for the tyro, is to look upon his 
bayman in the light of a fugleman, and implicitly to follow his 
motions. 
GUNS FOR BAY SHOOTING 
It is hardly to be expected that any person who is not en¬ 
tirely devoted to field sports will go to the trouble and expense 
of providing himself with a gun proper for every several kind 
of game and mode of shooting, as, if he should do so, he can 
scarce be completely armed without half a dozen pieces at the 
least. For sportsmen in general, a couple of guns, one for 
general work, and the other for fowl shooting, will be sufficient, 
but it cannot be denied that every kind of game has its peculiar 
weight and calibre of piece, better adapted than any other to 
do execution on it. 
Thus for summer Cock shooting, when the woods are in leaf, 
so that it is rare to fire a shot at above a dozen to twenty paces, 
a short, light, large-bored gun would be as effective, perhaps 
more effective than any, and far handier in covert, and less 
onerous in hot weather; the same gun would be amply suffi¬ 
cient for Rail shooting. For any person who could afford it 
and woiild take the trouble of having different guns for every 
species of sport, for summer Cock shooting and Rail shooting, I 
should recommend a gun not to exceed 26 inches length of 
barrel, and 12 guage, with a weight of six and a half pounds 
