Category: Sports/Hobbies

The Complete English Wing Shot

When the publishers asked me to write a book upon Shooting and its interest, I at first doubted whether I knew enough of the matter to fill a book of much size without repeating all the traditional lore that is to be found in every unread text-book, but I had no sooner underta...

Chapters

30. Part 30

This is open to sentimental objections, of course, but there are two ways of doing even this: one of them seems to bear lesser sentimental objection than the other. The most eff...

9. Part 9

For pheasants, Mr. Wilson prefers to get behind them and race his gun to the front without stopping the gun to inquire whether he _has_ got in front, because he finds that such...

4. Part 4

This is no unsupported view, for Pope Innocent III. forbade the use even of the cross-bow against Christian enemies, but permitted it against Infidels. It was even said that Ric...

32. Part 32

In beating flat country for hares, very much the same order as in partridge driving in the open, and as in pheasant beating in covert, has to be adopted. Stops and flanks are a...

12. Part 12

If your puppy has unfortunately learnt to chase hares or to kill chickens before you begin with it, severe measures will have to be taken to cure these crimes; but this should n...

16. Part 16

In all the countries in Europe pointers and setters are used, but there are districts in Hungary and Bohemia where partridges are so plentiful that this canine assistance is nei...

31. Part 31

The best sizes of shot for duck are probably No. 7 or 8 if reliance is to be placed upon hitting head or neck, or No. 4 if it is desired that body shots should kill. Probably No...

29. Part 29

There are some places in which it would be almost impossible to have pheasants and not have sport. The desire is to shoot pheasants that are difficult up to a certain degree, bu...

21. Part 21

What, then, is it that makes some birds lie for security all the season, and others fly for security as soon as they can use their wings? It has been said that if you drive bird...

24. Part 24

To state the principle of grouse driving shortly is possibly difficult. It is based upon a series of incidents in the perceptions of the birds, which are influenced by sight alo...

33. Part 33

Probably no bird gives a more easy shot than a woodcock, and at the same time none is so often missed. The reason may be that shooters are inclined to shoot at twice the distanc...

7. Part 7

It is often suggested that a thumb-stall which stands up and blocks the fore sight from the left eye is an assistance to right-shouldered shooters, and sometimes it is. But as i...

19. Part 19

By this plan the show flat-coated breed has come to the extreme front for the first time in the history of the field trials. Probably it will be interesting briefly to enumerate...

11. Part 11

All good shots at their best must shoot in the same way: what differs is the way they see their own performances and the way they describe them. This has been dealt with on othe...

10. Part 10

will make no mistake in shooting form, and will certainly never allow his gun to rake the flanks of his neighbours as he swings his body in walking in line, nor will he allow a...

28. Part 28

After birds have begun to lay in March and April, the next stage is to place the eggs under hens in sitting boxes. These are of two kinds: boxes in which the front opens out to...

27. Part 27

These four are _Phasianus ellioti_ and _Phasianus humiæ_, which are useless for sport. Then the copper pheasant from Japan (_Phasianus sœmmerringi_) Mr. Rothschild thinks eminen...

17. Part 17

There may be dogs of the old type hidden away in Ireland, and if so they are much more worthy of attention than those which for so long have been bred for show points. The best...

8. Part 8

The best place to keep cartridges in during the winter is the gun-room with a fire, and in the summer in the gun-room also, if it is dry enough not to require a fire; but the pr...

20. Part 20

The private character of the breed for work is very good indeed, although _some_ of them are reported to turn out rather hard in the mouth. But then the same thing can be said f...

34. Part 34

In summer these birds are widely distributed through nearly every wood in the country, and the majority of the large flocks we see in the winter come from abroad. Summer gives s...

3. Part 3

Once Mr. Purdey expressed the opinion that he could learn as much from his customers as they could from him. The author thought this so shrewd a remark, that, having a knowledge...

13. Part 13

A study of the matter is greatly complicated by the fact that game birds give out no scent when crouching, fearful, under a falcon, and this hawk most certainly does not rely up...

26. Part 26

In the foregoing chapter it has been shown to what point the greatest bag of partridges in a day has arrived in England. But more than double the number of these birds has been...

25. Part 25

This partnership arrangement came about when the keeper at The Grange discovered how easy it was, with proper precautions, to make up the nests of _sitting_ partridges to 20 or...

15. Part 15

Mr. Laverack’s dogs in the sixties were known mostly upon the show bench; but what was then less well recognised was that no dogs had done harder work upon the moors for many ca...

1. Part 1

When the publishers asked me to write a book upon Shooting and its interest, I at first doubted whether I knew enough of the matter to fill a book of much size without repeating...

22. Part 22

Where one forest adjoins another, exchange is no robbery; but where they adjoin sheep ground the only two possible ways of preventing a loss of deer are wire deer fences and the...

35. Part 35

They cannot be forced, or even encouraged, to migrate to this country. Instinct once lost cannot be re-created by any act of ours. The King tried turning out a lot of quail at S...

5. Part 5

One fault which is very bad in choke bores, and counts against shooting straight-going and straight-coming game well, far more than with cylinders, is that of patches without an...

2. Part 2

AN EARLY NINETEENTH-CENTURY PICTURE OF THE WOODCOTE POINTERS, THE PROPERTY OF COL. C. J. COTES. HIS FIELD TRIAL WINNERS PITCHFORD DRUCE AND PITCHFORD DUKE ARE DESCENDED FROM HIS...

6. Part 6

The length of the column of shot from the cylinder gun is longer than the spread from the choke bore, and the longer the range the longer is the column; but strangely, at long r...

14. Part 14

The late Joseph Lang, the gun-maker, had a breed of lemon-and-white pointers, from which those of the late Mr. Whitehouse were descended, and that gentleman’s Priam and Mr. W. A...

23. Part 23

Lord Walsingham killed to his own gun in one day of 1872 421 brace of grouse when the season’s bag was 807½ brace; and in 1888, after a very bad breeding season, he killed 535 b...

18. Part 18

Duchess was a light-made black-and-tan, and her dam was by the undoubted black-white-and-tan Gordon for which Lord Chesterfield gave 72 gs. to Tattersall’s at the Duke’s dispers...

36. Part 36

It may be remarked that it is no answer to say that tapeworm cannot be a cause of predisposition to disease, because it is always present. It is greatly more in evidence some ye...