Ground game provide shooting which is variously regarded as sport according to the standards of the shooter. Hares, which are destructive to crops, have to be shot down but hare-driving produces few opportunities for interesting work with a gun. But rabbit-shooting may afford considerable tests of hand, eye and brain, for a rabbit gets to its top speed in an amazingly small space of ground, and takes every advantage of cover and obstacle. The main methods of shooting rabbits are two—ferreting and laying out. In the former, ferrets are put to ground in the rabbits' burrows, or "buries," and the little animals are shot as they bolt from the holes. The sport varies with the condition of the weather; if it has been fine at night, and the rabbits have fed well, they are sluggish and disinclined to move; if they have been kept in by rain—for rabbits dislike a wet jacket— they will bolt quickly, or dodge from one hole into another, offer ing only the chance of snap shooting. If the second method, that of laying out, is adopted, the procedure is different. A day or two before the shoot, the gamekeeper goes the round of the buries with some sort of evil-smelling mixture, such as paraffin and tar, which he sprinkles into each hole. The rabbits leave their holes at night to feed, but do not return to them, objecting to the smell. The keeper the next morning fills in every hole, and on the day of the shoot the rabbits are found lying out in the under growth, from which they are dislodged by beaters with sticks, or by spaniels. In the south of England a pack of beagles is sometimes used for this purpose.
Sport with wildfowl must always be of an un certain nature, since it depends largely on the weather. The harder the weather the better, so far as the wildfowler is con cerned, since gales bring the fowl in from the sea to shelter and frost confines the spaces of water where they can feed by night and rest by day. Sport with wildfowl may be enjoyed by follow
ing two methods. One is that of the shore shooter, who waits at dawn and dusk at certain points over which he knows the duck will pass when flighting to and from their day and night quarters. He will need both for use and for friendly company a well-trained retriever, or he will not be able to pick his birds in the dark or from the water into which they may have fallen. The other method is that of the punt-gunner, who sets up to his fowl in a flat-bottomed boat carrying a heavy swivel-gun, firing anything from i lb. to 2 lb. of large size shot, with which he shoots at duck on the water or as they rise. This is a form of sport which is followed by probably a decreasing number of persons, but is one which requires a strong constitution, patience and endurance, and is perhaps more exciting and also more dangerous than any other shooting of its kind.
The art of shooting is not to be taught in words ; it is a matter of practice. But practice should be begun on right lines ; this is an easier proceeding to-day than it used to be, for one of the modern developments of the gun trade is the shooting school which the best firms place at the disposal of their clients, where the use of the gun can be learned together with the elements of the eti quette of the shooting field. The beginner should always be fitted with a gun, and the fitting again, is part of the gunmaker's busi ness. For different purposes different types of weapon are necessary, but for all round work a 12 bore hammerless ejector, weighing say 64 lb. and firing cartridges loaded with oz. of
shot with 42 grains of Schultze or 34 grains of E.C. may be recommended.