Chapter V: Part 5

But the various manners of shooting also seem to necessitate two different methods of holding with the left hand. Much has been said about the necessity for holding well forward, but the reasons advanced in support of this method do not bear examination by the light of physics. It has been urged that the outstretched arm properly relieves the trigger hand from the necessity of assisting in the aim. It is doubtful whether it should, and it is quite certain it does not, relieve the trigger hand, but on the contrary throws more work upon it. The proof of this is very easy. Let the gun be grasped in the centre of gravity by the left hand and presented, the trigger hand being unemployed. It will be found a difficult but a possible operation. Then shift the left hand up the barrel as far as it will go, and try to bring the gun up from the “ready” to the “present.” This will be found much more difficult, and probably impossible. Obviously, then, the outstretched arm is not the way to hold a gun if the left arm is to do the pushing and pulling about. This reason, which has been very much relied upon, breaks down entirely; but that is not to say that the forward hand is wrong, but only that its advantages are but little understood, although they are fully appreciated.

In order to present a gun at a point of aim that is still, probably the extended arm is always the best, whether the point of aim is a point in front of fast crossing game, or a motionless object, or a straight-away bird. This can be supported by another very simple experiment. The gun presented at a point is much more apt to “wobble” than when it is intentionally kept moving in any one direction. One of its worst “wobbles” is a drop of the muzzle at the instant the trigger is pulled. It is caused by sympathetic action of the muscles. In order to avoid “wobble” of any kind, it is best to hold the hands as far on either side of, or rather in front and behind, the centre of gravity as possible. To try this, let the gun be presented and aimed without the butt resting on the shoulder; first, with the hands in the usual positions; second, with one hand on either side to right and left of the centre of gravity—that is, just in front of the breech. The tendency to “wobble” will be easily observed in the latter holding and aiming. If one should be so steady as not to see it, then a trial of the same thing in a high side wind will very quickly show which is the steadiest way of holding.

But even if we are such clever shots as to require no swing to get on to “the spot” for the first barrel, we shall certainly require to swing for the second shot, or, alternatively, adopt the plan of taking the gun down from the shoulder and re-presenting it. For this reason the position of the left hand is not ideal for the second barrel when it is outstretched to the full length of the arm, or when the arm is shortened with the elbow bent is the position ideal for getting on a point without swing. It is doubtful whether such a thing as the latter can happen on fast crossing game, because there is obviously unconscious swing in the act of bringing the gun from the “ready” to the “present.”

There is no doubt that the learner, as well as the gunner who is temporarily out of form, are best served by a method in which they can most easily swing the gun, because it is by the act of swinging the gun with the game that good form is so often recovered, through increase of confidence, after a partial absence without leave. But the act of swinging can be done as much with the body as with the arms, and certainly lateral swing can be very effective when partly accomplished in this way.

AT WARTER PRIORY. LORD LOVAT IN THE DALES
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One of the most fertile causes of missing is swinging round with the arms and shoulders, and not with the hips. Obviously, if the shooter can always keep facing his game, the triangle sides made with gun, arm, and body all remain of the same length, and besides, the head and eye remain relatively in the same position, and absolutely in the same line with the rib and sight of the gun and game. If, then, a shooter can rely upon thus facing his game, he has more need of bringing up the gun to a point than he has of muscular contraction of the arms in pushing and pulling about the gun, in swinging with the game.

Still, we can none of us afford to be handicapped, and there are occasions when the arms must swing for all they are worth, and for this reason an easy position for the left hand is desirable, although that position need not necessarily be looked for on the trigger guard, or even on the fore end of the gun. There is a medium in all things, and assuredly those who strain to get their hands more forward than looks comfortable are likely to miss in consequence. This remark is made because the author has seen some beginners striving to reach forward, because they have read that it is proper; whereas they looked as strained as if they were on the rack, and besides, killed no game.

One of the most awkward attempts is to try to follow game overhead and fail to get enough in front to fire. There is then no time to turn round. When turning round is necessary, it should be done with the gun at the “ready,” not at the “present,” and not until the foot is planted firmly should the gun be raised. Any following round with the gun, or even with the eye if the game is going over, will not prove very deadly as a rule. The late Lord Hill and his brother, the Hon. G. Hill, were as good pheasant shots as anybody is, or has been, and it was very obvious that they both went round and planted a firm foot before looking for their game from overhead.

The two positions of holding the left hand may be seen in the shooting of the Prince of Wales, with the straight arm, and in Mr. R. Rimington Wilson, with the bent left elbow.

The question has often been asked, What should one do in case a neighbour hits a bird that is obviously going away to die? It seems to depend on what your neighbour would wish: a bad sportsman, if that is not a paradox, may ask you why you are shooting his dead birds. That is only because he would rather run the risk of leaving wounded game than lose the off chance of claiming another bird. But a good sportsman would generally know by the appearance of the game whether it was likely to fall within reasonable distance; also he would know that by the unwritten laws of sport first blood constitutes ownership without any claim being made, and there should be no false pride that prevents wounded creatures being added to the bag as expeditiously as possible. There is another consideration. It is the worst possible form to cause much time to be occupied in looking for wounded game. It spoils the sport.

At the same time, one who values the good opinion of others will avoid a practice of sharing birds, or shooting at those more properly the targets of the next man. There is often a doubt as to whose shot a bird properly is. It is not good that both shooters should decline the chance for the sake of the other, but generally one man knows the other’s form so well, that if the latter does not take the bird at one particular instant of time, it may be taken as left alone for the former to deal with.

Probably anyone who remembers the sound advice given in

“Be to others kind and true,
As you’d have others be to you,”

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 gun at any instant, loaded or unloaded, in loading or unloading, to point at anybody for a fraction of a second. Besides which, he will rather let off a dozen woodcocks, unshot at, than run the risk of putting out beaters’ eyes, or of being told that, “although that gun seems so harmless on the game, it has probably got some shot in it.” Besides this, a shooter is responsible for the care, and also the appearance of care, of his loader, and the two things are not quite the same; for although care implies that shooters’ bodies are safe, it does not always refrain from attacking their nerves. For instance, when empty guns are jerked about, aligning everybody in turn, it is quite safe for the bodies, but very bad for the nerves of those who do not know the guns are unloaded.

Drawing for places is the best plan of posting guns. The author has found any other way, such as trying to give the best places to the honoured guest, very unsatisfactory. You never can give the best places to some people, for they do not know how to stand still. The writer has sometimes had the best shooting himself when he has taken the worst place, simply because the “honoured guests” were acting as “flankers,” and sending the game elsewhere that should have gone to them. To show yourself as little as you like, but to move not at all, is obviously a part of good shooting form.

It is hardly necessary to say that it is not the best of form to tell a fellow-guest that the management of the beat is “rotten,” and then to make some remark that your host translates into flattery. The fellow-guest may have taken your criticism as a useful hint to the host already, with your own “great authority” attached to it.

Somewhere the author has heard that His Majesty has expressed his opinion that a pheasant shared is a good deal worse than a pheasant missed; and in the head keeper’s room at Sandringham hang some verses which therefore obviously have the King’s approval, the more surely because they hang there in spite of their greater precept than polish. They appear to round off a chapter on form in shooting with a Royal behest. Part of them read—

“Never, never let your gun
Pointed be at anyone:
That it may unloaded be,
Matters not the least to me.
You may kill or you may miss,
But at all times think of this:
All the pheasants ever bred
Won’t repay for one man dead.”

CRACK SHOTS—I

_Bailey’s Magazine_ initiated an interest-provoking scheme when it set its readers to work to solve the difficult problem of which twelve men were the most expert in each branch of sport. It started with polo, in an article by Mr. Buckmaster, wherein the play of each man was reviewed in the true impartial spirit of criticism. The names had just then almost been officially given to the world in the Hurlingham “recent form” list; and this the readers of _Bailey_ confirmed. In one article the twelve best fishermen were voted for; and fly fishing, unlike polo, is a private sport; unlike shooting, it is not even carried out in private parties, and really there was nothing to go upon except the literary efforts of the fishermen voted upon. Because a man can write and can interest fishermen, he need not necessarily be a clever angler. Francis Francis was the one; by all accounts he was very far from the other. Consequently, the voting for anglers of highest form was on a totally different basis from that of the less private as well as the wholly public sports. Had we set the ballot-box going for crack marksmen (exclusive of riflemen and pigeon shots) sixty years ago, the man who must have come to the top was Colonel Hawker. He would have been there by right of the story he told to young shooters, for whether he was the superb marksman suggested by his writings or not, there was nobody to challenge it—no one who had shown that he knew woodcraft and watercraft half as well. Probably there has never been anyone since who could hold a candle to the Colonel for a complete knowledge of the latter art and science (for gunnery was as much a concern of his as the habits of fowl). Had we voted, we must inevitably have placed him top of the tree; because game shooting then was not a thing to be conducted in large parties, but was a concern only of my friend, my pointer, and myself. There were no spectators except the beaters, who were up the trees to mark, and the gamekeeper, who carried a game-bag, and perhaps rode a shooting pony.

Pigeon shooting did a little, a very little indeed, to make for publicity years afterwards; and there were occasional matches shot at partridges, but these were sometimes more by way of testing the game capacity of estates than the shooting skill of the marksmen. Thus on one occasion there was a match shot in the south-west corner of Scotland and in Norfolk on the same day, and although Norfolk won by a little, the bags were near enough together to prove that the two districts were then very equal as natural partridge country. That they are very unequal now only proves that the more care has been bestowed upon game in the Eastern Counties.

But had there been any voting for crack marksmen in those days, it is certain that, after Hawker, the men who were most talked of (the match makers) would have come out next. They alone were heard of by all sportsmen, and the sporting magazines had chronicled their prowess. Other shooters were “born to flush unseen, and waste their powder on the desert hare”—to misquote to fit the occasion.

In these times in a sense it is different. Men do see each other shoot in parties up to fourteen. But it is clear that when parties, even half as big, are constantly changing, and meeting fresh guns every time, that the form of any individual amongst them soon gets to be known as accurately as that of any race-horse in training at headquarters. This is how it happens that it has been possible to select a dozen men of mark and marksmanship difficult to displace in the consensus of opinion of the men they meet and shoot with.

But just as the majority were never heard of when George Osbaldeston, Lord Kennedy, Horatio Ross, Coke of Norfolk, Colonel Anson, and the rest, were shooting matches, so it may very well be that the best shots of our day never shoot in big parties, and are not known as good shots at all. There are still large numbers of shooters so much sportsmen that they think of woodcraft and sportsmanship first, and only of marksmanship as a secondary and necessary accomplishment.

What, after all, is putting a bullet into the heart of a stag at 100 or 150 yards distant? Any gun-maker’s assistant could make sure of doing it at the standing deer, provided he did not happen to suffer from buck fever, and unless he was a sportsman at heart he would not. But to stalk that stag is a problem of a very different character. The novice will probably make a mess of the simple business of following the heels of his stalker—he who carries his rifle, finds the stag, stalks him, puts “his gentleman” in position, places the rifle in his hand, and tells him when to fire. When the latter can do all that without the stalker’s assistance, he may, and will, flatter himself that the mere shooting straight was quite an elementary stage in the art of woodcraft, and that marksmanship counts for very little indeed in the most fashionable and most sporting use of firearms in Britain. Besides this, stalking is as private as fishing with the dry fly; and again, had our ancestors had to select a stalker for premier position, it would have been Scrope first and the rest nowhere, just on the same grounds as before: Scrope had described his splendid sport in his book.

Then, obviously, the shooters of grouse over dogs are barred also; because, two being company and three none, it would be impossible to take a consensus of opinion. If it were possible, what principle would choice be made upon? The mere shooting straight is very little of the work to be done. Surely the man who can handle his own brace of pointers or setters, a retriever also, and shoot as well, is a step above him who can only shoot. Then the man who can walk for ten hours is far and away better than he who is beaten in five.

In the old partridge shooting matches it was the pace that killed and the pace that won, and there are few men who can walk fast all day and shoot straight; still fewer whom people would name as the best, because they would not have seen them. Then there is the big-game hunter, who must be judged, though probably wrongly, on the size of his bag. He, too, does not perform in public. And all these sportsmen have to be left out of count in such selections as the readers of _Bailey_ have made. Their verdicts, as a matter of course, have gone to the men who can best deal with streams of game by means of three ejector guns and a couple of loaders. It is not so much a question of shooting straight as shooting straightish and often. The man who kills two out of four in one unit of time is better than he who kills three out of four in twice the time. At the end of the day the former’s bag will be the bigger, he will have had more sport, and, as the late Prince Duleep Singh advised his sons, “Cartridges are made to be let off.”

There is good reason why the driving of all kinds of game should be the most popular sport with the greatest numbers. The days when the squire shot game every day in the week, and no faster than he could eat it, have long ago departed; this is not because the “hunting” of a pheasant with gun and dog is not as good sport as ever it was, for the pheasant is at least as interesting to hunt to his lair before he is flushed and shot, as is the hare to hunt until she can move no more. In both cases the individual gives vastly more sport than when it is shot as one amongst hundreds. But the “leisured class,” as Americans call it, are constantly finding more work to do, more that must be done; and we shall soon, like the Americans, have no leisured class but the unemployed, just as they have none except the telegraph-boys. That is the reason sport has to be taken in junks. It does not make for a knowledge of woodcraft; but there is little woodcraft necessary in ordering the beating of coverts crowded with pheasants. Then, although the single driven bird may be a particularly easy shot to the shooter, difficulty increases precisely in the same ratio as numbers. The excellent shot who can kill 10 pheasants quickly and consecutively cannot necessarily kill 30, much less 100, in three and ten times the period. To do it, he must be in condition of the best—at least his arms must. There are crack shots like Lord de Grey, who in his prime was in a class by himself in the butts, but would not have held his own with Lord Walsingham in a stiff day’s walking up game. Some of the crack shots have not been above shooting-school practice at streams of clay birds, sent over them in order to get the arms used to working each gun fairly, quickly, and accurately, and without the man becoming demoralised by suddenly asking too much of his muscles. The writer has found his arms aching under the work as if with rheumatism.

The voting placed Lord de Grey still at the top of the tree; one shooter remarking that he was quite in a class by himself. Lord de Grey uses hammer ejector guns, and he can always shoot slowly, and on his day (and they are mostly his days) he is said to be just as quick as the chances occur; some of his greatest admirers declare that you can never tell by the interval when he changes guns. Mr. R. Rimington Wilson and Lord Walsingham are bracketed for second place: the latter does less shooting than he used to, and the former more. Most of the modern generation have gone to school to Lord Walsingham, and Mr. Wilson is described as the best grouse shot in the world. The Prince of Wales takes rank amongst the twelve best, and it is said, to the credit of the Royal sportsman, that he would always draw for places if he were allowed to do so. His keenness is beyond question, and his experience abroad as well as in this country is well known. As a shot he is very quick. Prince Victor Duleep Singh is remarkably quick too, and as accurate as can be. Low flying pheasants he can kill regularly without hitting them elsewhere than in the head and neck, but then he went to school to his father at ten years old. Amongst the men who have come to have great credit as shots of late years is Mr. J. F. Mason, who now has Drumour, long shot over by the late Barclay Field. Mr. Mason can kill wild pigeons as well as game, the former with results never exceeded. The Hon. H. Stonor is another gunner selected by the voting for the twelve cracks; he is particularly good at high pheasants, and is built for shooting. Mr. Wykeham Martin and Mr. E. de C. Oakley are said to be quite exceptional performers in a high wind. Lord Falconer, whose shooting with the late Baron Hirsch in Hungary was a revelation, and Lord Ashburton, who gave us all a lead in partridge preserving, are noted for being graceful shots, and as effective as any; and Mr. Fryer of Newmarket is, with a 6¼ lb. gun and 1 oz. shot, as deadly as any man living, on driven partridges. Mr. Arthur Blyth, one of our greatest partridge preservers, and Mr. Heatley Noble are both included in the marksmen twelve. It will be noted with interest that several of these gunners use hammer guns, and most of them guns of full weight and a light charge of shot.

It is very likely that _Bailey’s_ scheme found severe critics, but after all it is a better plan than that which allowed Hawker and Scrope to write themselves into fame, and it will certainly go to make the History of Sport.

CRACK SHOTS—II

The author having criticised the article in _Bailey’s Magazine_ in the above remarks, was nevertheless himself responsible for it all, except the voting, so that his criticism is obviously intended in good part, and is only to indicate what a very limited class of shooting comes under review in an article of the kind. There have been wonderful shots who cannot be compared. For instance, good snipe shots, who saw Mr. Hugh Owen shoot snipe in Pembrokeshire thirty-five years ago, told the author that he not only beat them, but out-classed them, as well as everyone else he ever met. What surprised was the great distances he killed these birds consecutively with No. 5 shot—the size always used by Lord Walsingham.

Since that article was written the author has often been told that Lord de Grey is the only shooter who is as good as his reputation. No doubt he is as good, for many of those who voted put him “in a class by himself,” and more particularly when the shooting was extra difficult, as in a strong wind and when birds were far out. Then his hammer ejector choke bores, which are handed to him at full cock, and always loaded with 42 grains of Schultze powder and 1–1/16 of No. 5, have a way of finding the right place at a greater rate than any others. It has been said of him that you can never tell by the interval when he changes his guns. The two most discussed incidents in his shooting have been when he accomplished five grouse coming together, by changing guns after he had shot one barrel, and then had time to get two more of the five in front of him and two behind. On another occasion, in walking through covert a cry of “mark” brought round Lords de Grey and Walsingham, when, amongst the trees, they accounted for four partridges each, or the whole covey of eight birds. Lord de Grey is a very deliberate shot when he has time to be so, and he has been seen to swing his gun some distance without succeeding in getting on his game, and in consequence to refrain from shooting. Therefore no question can arise about the fact that he aligns, at least when there is time. Lord Walsingham wrote some years ago to describe to a newspaper his method of killing wood pigeons, which, amongst other evolutions, had been occasionally chased by a falcon. He said: “The way in which a certain measure of accuracy, although by no means a satisfactory measure to myself, was attained in shooting at these wood pigeons could scarcely be better described than in the words of your correspondent. He writes: ‘I myself race the birds, as it were, in my mind without bringing up the gun; I then swing it and fire. This swing or pitch is all done in one motion’! So far I go with him entirely, but when he adds, ‘and the gun is not stopped even after the trigger is pulled,’ I differ from him in practice. In my case the gun is stopped at the instant of pulling the trigger, having been swung to as nearly as possible to the exact spot the bird may be expected to reach by the time the charge can get there to intercept it.” Lord Walsingham was using 3¼ drams of Hall’s Field B powder and 1⅛ oz. of No. 5 shot from a cylinder gun.

The number of cartridges used for the 1070 grouse in the day in 1888 was 1500. As a feat of endurance and woodcraft this is hardly likely ever to be surpassed, especially with black powder. Only a shooter who never suffered from gun headache could have done it. But even when that is said, the keeping the birds on a 2200 acre moor for 20 drives is the point of the story. When the late Sir F. Milbank killed his 728 birds, he reduced his shot to ⅞ of an ounce in order to get penetration, and declared that he would still further reduce to ¾ of an ounce for the sake of still more penetration.

Mr. F. E. R. Fryer has been observed to have three pheasants dead in the air at once, and yet in another page he is described as a deliberate shot. It has also been shown upon another page that it takes just ⅓ of a second to bring the backward movement in recoil to rest. Probably the reaction of the shoulder takes as long after recoil, so that if the tallest first bird fell from 40 yards high, and took, by the action of gravity, 2¾ seconds to reach the ground, when quite dead, we may examine the time thus:—

Recoil and reaction after first kill ⅔ seconds
Fresh aim and let off ¾ seconds
Recoil and its reaction after second kill ⅔ seconds
Fresh aim and let off ¾ seconds
——
Total 2.83 or about 2¾ seconds

Three-quarters of a second seems to be ample time for getting aim and letting off. Partridges and pheasants when there is no wind travel about 60 feet a second, and Mr. Fryer has also been observed to take quadruple toll out of a covey; if we may assume this done within 40 yards in front and 40 behind, we have 4 birds killed in 4 seconds.

This would represent the times:—

First recoil and recovery ⅔ seconds
Second aim and let off ⅔ seconds
Second recoil and recovery ⅔ seconds
Third aim and let off ⅔ seconds
Third recoil and recovery ⅔ seconds
Fourth aim and let off ⅔ seconds

So that four from one covey of partridges represents quicker shooting than three pheasants in the air together, provided, of course, that the partridges are not coming against a wind, and are not in straggling formation.

These two little calculations are made in order to show the enormous importance of as little recoil as possible, and that is also the reason that the author has set himself to design a ballistic pendulum capable of easily taking the momentum of recoil, and the momentum of the shot, at the same discharge, which is a thing that cannot be done by the chronograph, because that instrument only records the time (not the striking velocity) of the thing that hits it and breaks connection, and that thing is the fastest pellet instead of the average of all, or the total of the pellets. Powder-makers can still further reduce recoil; that is, if they are encouraged by a general demand for those powders that give the least recoil for an equal power of shot impact.

The author was reminded not long ago by the Rev. W. Serjeantson of an occurrence of thirty years ago. Three guns, of which he and the author’s were two, were shooting together over dogs, and twice on the same day, after a brood of grouse had risen, the author, having been fully occupied in shooting, asked the keeper which way the rest of the brood had gone. His reply was on both occasions, “They have all flown one way.” That is, there were six up and six killed, which sounds much more commonplace than it really is, because, as it so seldom happens that three guns do shoot together over dogs, when by chance they do so there is a very good excuse for two barrels to be let off at the same bird, but of course only when the birds rise all together, as they did on these occasions.

The most sporting bird the author has made the acquaintance of is the Virginian quail. Three guns advancing to a point at these birds would not often get six birds at the flush of the covey, although, on an occasion when they rise at twice, two guns have got five, as happened once when, with Mr. Hobart Ames, who is President of the Shovel Trust in America, the author was shooting over his and Mr. H. B. Duryea’s celebrated setters, one of which could easily have earned in America £500 a year at the stud if his owner had not preferred to shoot over him. But it is not at the rise of the covey that these birds are difficult. As soon as they are flushed they fan out and take to covert, and their twisting second rise, with the scrub between them and the gun, makes them very difficult. Mr. and Mrs. Duryea are both remarkably good quail shots; the author could not say which is the better, but he believes Mr. Duryea claims to be the better turkey shot, a claim which the lady admits. Mr. Duryea can even make the decoy turkey gobble by the accuracy of his shooting upon occasion. In Tennessee the author was by their kindness introduced to the old English fashion of shooting by the use of shooting ponies. The mounted guns, whether one or three, had three handlers of dogs, each mounted also, and each working a brace of speedy dogs, and by that means covering three-quarters to a mile of country at a beat. The horn is used to sound “a point,” and then the six miles an hour “fox trot” is increased to hunting speed, until the point is reached, when the shooters slide off and shoot. The useless (?) nigger can, at such times, manage to lead six horses. This sport is a sort of cross between hunting and shooting, as also was that of ancient England, if all accounts are true. So was hunting in the New Forest, when William Rufus missed his way, and ran up against an arrow by mistake.

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 other pages. But likenesses do not end with actual aiming, for somewhat similar to the American quail shooting described above was the method by which the late Maharajah Duleep Singh killed his 440 grouse in the day. That is to say, he had several brace of dogs with as many handlers going at the same time, and rode from point to point. But for quickness of shooting and changing guns he has probably never been beaten. Every shooter, as far as the author can learn, is sometimes surprised at missing with the first barrel, and at the ease with which the second barrel accomplishes the more difficult task. Surely we may take a lesson from the crack shots who have this experience. The pace at which they are obliged to swing to catch up for the second shot necessitates an uncontrollable gun at the end of the swing—a gun going faster than merely keeping up with the bird, and they kill because they are more forward than they thought. But if so, it may be asked, “What then is the use of alignment?” Precious little for that shot certainly, seeing that there is no time to correct aim. But alignment does not mean looking down the rib and seeing the bird at the end of it; it means looking down the rib _at_ some point in space which moves as the bird moves, and its principal value is not that it is good to correct aim, but that it guides the first swing to the spot. For instance, in the second shot the gun is at the shoulder always, and swings in to the correct place while always in alignment with the eye.

Ten years ago, Sir Ralph P. Gallwey picked out the following as the best shots in England:—Lords de Grey, Walsingham, Huntingfield, Ashburton, Carnegie, Wemyss, and Bradford, the Maharajah Duleep Singh, Messrs. F. E. R. Fryer, A. Stuart Wortley, R. Rimington Wilson, and F. S. Corrance.

_Bailey’s_ list of voted-for good shots was—

1. Earl de Grey.

2. Mr. Rimington Wilson.

Lord Walsingham.

3. Mr. H. Noble.

4. Hon. H. Stoner.

Lord Falconer.

Prince Victor Duleep Singh.

H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.

F. E. R. Fryer.

5. E. de C. Oakley.

Lord Ashburton.

6. A. W. Blyth.

C. P. Wykeham Martin.

Prince F. Duleep Singh.

Lord Carnarvon.

7. Lord Warwick.

Lord Westbury.

Sir Robert Gresley.

Prince Victor Duleep Singh is no doubt about as quick a game shot as his father before him; the latter as a shot compared in the same way with Englishmen as his countryman “Ranji” compares with our slower cricketers.

The Prince of Wales is very quick and very keen; not at all a feather-bed sportsman, he is ready at all times to face the weather for a very little sport. His duck shooting in Canada and his jungle sport in India are within the recollection of everybody. That he does not draw for places is because a host’s will is law even to the heir to England’s crown.

The Hon. H. Stonor, who is not easily beaten for style and accuracy, uses 33 grains of E.C. No. 3 and 1 oz. shot. He uses hammer ejector guns, as do the Prince of Wales, Lord de Grey, and Lord Bradford, who once did some record shooting in Scotland.

Mr. Wykeham Martin is supposed to be as good in a gale of wind as any man, and his rabbit shooting across rides is at least as good as anybody’s. He has made a name for himself on snipe in Ireland, and has the very sporting reputation of being the most unselfish shooter in England.

Mr. R. Rimington Wilson, who has been referred to on another page, is specially good at low crossing grouse, which are generally considered much more difficult than those which show against the sky, and he takes the near birds just above the beak, and as he was described in _Bailey_ by some shooters as the best grouse shot in the world, here is another very good proof of alignment being the correct thing.

Mr. Arthur Blyth has accounted for 64 partridges in one drive, and is considered a brilliant shot.

Mr. E. de C. Oakley is probably the best shot in North Wales; he is especially good in a gale of wind, at hard feathered game, and meets the difficulty with a big charge.

Lord Ashburton is said by several of the voters to be a most graceful shot, and his accuracy is beyond dispute.

Mr. Fryer complains that he gets older while the partridges do not; other people think he uses a 6¼ lb. gun and 1 oz. shot in a way to prevent them getting older.

MR. B. J. WARWICK’S COMPTON PRIDE. A POINTER WHICH TWICE WON THE FIELD
TRIAL CHAMPION STAKE
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CAPT. H. HEYWOOD LONSDALE’S IGHTFIELD DUFFER. THE CELEBRATED FIELD
TRIAL WINNING SETTER.
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POINTERS AND SETTERS

Twenty-five years ago the fashion was to decry driving game, and to hold up, as the good old sporting plan, the use of gun-dogs in the pursuit of partridges and grouse. But this was only a fashion of the fashionless. Shooters were not so childish as to decline to shoot in one method because they could not do it in the other, and half the grouse moors and three-quarters of the partridge ground then, as now, could not be worked with pointers and setters without sacrifice of a large portion of the game. Either it was driven away for wiser neighbours to bag, or else it died of old age after doing as much harm to its successors as any early Hanoverian king of England—that is, as much as possible. The reasons for the growth of wildness are many, but in dealing with dogs it is only necessary to take the birds as we find them, and to get them in the most sporting fashion that is left open to us.

At the same time, it may be remarked that the Press changed completely round after the publication of the Badminton shooting books, and it became as unfashionable to write of shooting over dogs as it had been to write of driving.

But the views expressed in the Badminton books were drawn from Yorkshire and Norfolk, and the result was that this time both sportsmen and the Press attempted to force an imitation of those methods that in those counties had only been adopted as a choice of two evils, when birds became so wild that it was a question of driving or no game. This fashion has made the act of shooting take rank above the all-embracing “sportsmanship” in the minds of those who have grasped at and acquired the first-named part without aiming at the whole. But this view is not likely to last longer than the mechanical part of shooting remains a difficulty. It is little likely to do so for long, with so many shooting schools, where clay birds can be sent over the gun in streams at all angles and all speeds. Here the management of two, three, or four guns can be learnt, ambition can be served, and after that a decline in keenness will generally set in. One of the greatest and best shooters of the seventies and eighties, one who carried most weight in the Badminton book, seems to have almost given up, and it may fairly be assumed that when the mechanical part of shooting is once gained to perfection, it leaves no room for further ambition.

But this is far from being true of shooting over dogs. There is so much more to learn than the mere mechanical part of shooting. Whether one breeds dogs, breaks them, works them, or has them worked by others, they are a constant source of anticipation, and anticipation in sport is of far greater interest than realisation.

Possibly one does no good to the interest of anticipation by attempting to assist sportsmen to the choice or breaking of better dogs. Those the author began with were his ideals until he knew of better, and a super-ideal would be useless were it not impossible. But when a poor team of dogs may lead to the abandonment of canine assistance in shooting, it is another matter, and everybody who knows the pleasure given by dogs should strive to improve the race.

For the last forty years there have been held public field trials on game for pointers and setters. Whether these events have been worked off upon paired partridges in the spring, or contested by finding young broods of grouse just before the opening of the season, they have given breeders and sportsmen the chance of breeding by selection for pace, nose, quartering, and breaking. Unfortunately, they have left out stamina. There have been what were at the time called “stamina trials,” but as they were sometimes won by slow dogs they did not merit the high-sounding title, and for real stamina trials one has to go to America.

Trials for ability to stay are much more necessary now than ever before, because the dog shows have ceased to be any assistance to breeders of working dogs. When it was possible to compare at shows the external forms of pointers and setters that had succeeded at field trials, they were of some use, on the ground that true formation is suggestive of stamina. But since separate breeds of dogs have been evolved by the shows for the shows, the working dogs are either not sent to them, or do not win if they are sent, so that the show-winning pointer or setter is taken to be bad and of a degraded sort unless the contrary is proved. This is a great pity, for there is no doubt that stamina is the foundation of almost every other virtue in the pointer and setter.

A dog that cannot go on long has the period of his daily breaking restricted, he does not learn wisdom, he does not gain enough experience to make a proper use of his scenting powers, and if, at last, success in breaking is achieved, then the reward for labour expended is half an hour’s fast work instead of half a day of it.

This means that the shooter must have a large kennel and one or two kennel men, instead of a small kennel easily looked after by a gamekeeper without hindrance to his other work. The question then becomes serious, and those who live in London or in the neighbourhood of big towns usually have not the necessary room for the healthy maintenance of a large kennel of dogs. If they take moors in Scotland or Ireland, the kennels there are usually only of service in the shooting season, especially if the moors are not taken upon long lease. Scotland is bad wintering for dogs bred in England, and although it must not be forgotten that the Duke of Gordon, Lord Lovat, and many other sportsmen wintered their famous kennels of setters in Scotland, their dogs came to have coats much thicker than are to be seen now upon setters—that is, they had less feather but more body covering. At least, that was the opinion formed by the writer on paying a visit to the late Lord Lovat’s kennel in the early seventies. At that time this kennel and that of Lord Cawdor were the only representatives of the old black-white-and-tan kennel of the Duke of Gordon, although the blood of the latter sort was widely spread as crosses in other races of setters. This was obviously so in the black-and-tan kennel of the late Lord Rosslyn (who introduced bloodhound to get the colour), and in that of many English setter kennels. They were known as English setters, and shown as such, only because there was a mistaken idea that Gordons were black-and-tan, without white.

Stamina, then, must be improved if dogs are to be generally popular where they can be used. But some few of the winning field trial workers would look foolish after 30 minutes’ experience of a bed of strong heather. Shooters at Aldridge’s annual sale are frequently observed purchasing two or three little highly broken weeds that could not possibly give satisfaction. There is often a great deal of hustle, fuss, and fictitious pace about the very little dogs that are now sometimes bred, but their bolt is soon shot, and they are a hindrance to sport for the rest of the day. The old dogs that were regarded as stayers did not look to be in such a mighty hurry; they had a long easy stride, with no up and down action (it is that which tires). As being much bigger, they were probably much faster than the little hustler division now so numerous, and some of them could keep up the pace all day. Many could do a half-day’s work, and some of those that were _not_ regarded as stayers were brilliantly fast and slashingly bold for two hours in the morning and another two in the afternoon. The author remembers one of the latter that after winning the National Championship at the Shrewsbury Meeting in the spring put out his shoulder. The mend was a bad one, and although this accident destroyed the stamina it did not interfere much with the pace of this extraordinary dog. Afterwards, for some years, he could beat the best in a most successful field trial kennel for 20 minutes, but then he was done for. What has been said about the uselessness of non-stayers may be emphasised by the experience of this dog, for, although he was often taken out in the spring as a “trial horse” for young ones, it was thought useless to put him into a shooting team for Scotland. That is to say, the most brilliant 20 minutes worker was useless then, and is so now.

It is not often that absolute proof of the value of any individual points in the dog is obtained. But here was one, proving that shoulders have little effect upon speed, but are all-important for staying. When Mr. A. E. Butter’s Faskally Bragg was winning Champion honours on the bench and in the field too, we had the exhibition of a heavy-shouldered dog winning at the shows, where true formation for staying was unknown, and also in the field trials, where it was never tried. Nose, speed, and beauty of attitude in pointing and backing placed this dog at the top, but had there been real stamina trials he would never have been heard of. Once the writer saw him on a freshly-turned sandy plough, where he was hunted against Mr. A. T. Williams’ very small pointer, Rose of Gerwn. The latter went 100 yards for every 20 that Bragg tumbled over. Yet here was your show Champion beaten to a standstill, on the question of external form alone, by an ugly-headed little pointer that could not have won a prize at a show in a class by herself. Yet for heart and courage, for pace, and probably for stamina, there have been few to equal her in the last decade.

The dog-show setters are most beautiful creatures, but the points on which they win here and in America are not the points that a sportsman requires. “Feather” goes a long way towards victory, but in America they _shear_ their setters before the shooting season opens. The reason for this is that the burrs there are not only a nuisance, as they sometimes are here, but a total prevention of sport. Any coat that collects them brings the dog to a standstill in a few minutes. They are much smaller, but the spikes are sharper and stronger than those of the English plant.

Slack loin is only a drawback at the shows, but it _stops_ a dog in work. A long, refined head is a beauty at the shows, but it holds no brains that amount to anything. But worse than all this is the fact that the hunting instinct has lapsed in the show breeds. To be induced to range they must be _excited_. Now, in the truly bred pointer or setter you may start by repressing, go on by directing, and end by many “dressings,” but you cannot weaken the hunting instinct, however you try to do it. In the former sort you have to wind up the clock and put the hands right at every turn, in the latter you have to put the regulator right once and the works will do the rest. It is impossible to endow with instinct at all, and especially is it impossible when excitement has taken the place of the hunting habit. You have only the excitement on which to work to re-create a love of hunting, at the same time that you have to repress excitement in the interests of breaking.

It is not very wonderful that show-bred dogs cannot win field trials. To ask a breaker to educate them is a little worse than to turn Irish salmon into the Thames and expect them to come back there. When the last Thames salmon was killed the last instinct to return to the Thames vanished from _Salmo salar_. You can no more get it back than you can make a field trial dog out of a show-bred one, or bring the dead instinct to life.

Having got the right blood in the form of a puppy of ten or twelve months old, and one that has learnt no bad manners at walk or in some bad breaker’s hands, there is a straight road to success, but one that is not always taken. The first thing to teach a puppy is to understand all you say to it. Until this has been accomplished, the loudest shouts of “Down charge,” “Drop,” or any other order, are in danger of being mistaken for just the opposite to what is intended. Most of the clever breakers at field trials have unique signals, invented by themselves, and practised by nobody else. It is a good way there, and in shooting, because your dog is not then confused by orders given by other people. One man drops his dog by bringing his stick to the ground, and signals it forward by holding up his hand. The general practice is just the reverse. It does not matter what signals or words of command are used if they always mean the same for the dog.

CAPT. H. HEYWOOD LONSDALE’S IGHTFIELD ROB ROY POINTING, AND BACKED BY
PITCHFORD RANGER
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The more often orders are given, and obedience to them is enforced, the more instinctive becomes the dog’s habit of obedience; but against this must be placed the fact that a puppy should never be tired of a lesson. A lesson, before entry on game, should always be only a part of a game at romps to the dog. Consequently, it must not go on so long that the puppy tires of romping, or be repeated so often in the game that the youngster thinks it “a bore.”

Obedience is one thing, prompt obedience quite another; and it is the latter that serves the sportsman, not the former. It is the last stage of hand breaking to ensure prompt obedience when hesitation or unwillingness has gone before. These two stages generally occur in dropping to hand and gun lessons, and in answering whistle, all of which will require a little pushing and pulling force to be used in the early stages, until the meaning of the teacher is grasped by the pupil. Up to this point the order has to be repeated many times as the force is being used, in order that the pupil may grasp the meaning, which he will only do gradually. But after the lesson has once been learnt it is a bad plan to give any order twice. It should be once only, followed by obedience or punishment. This sounds severe, but it is the method for saving the necessity for severity in the future.