the majority of shots happen to be cross ones, they scarcely kill anything; and they cannot understand the reason, and merely tell you they are in bad shooting, or the gun does not suit them, as they thought they had covered every bird they had shot at. The habit of shooting well before game is easily acquired, if attempted early, and practice will soon make judgment correct in this respect. Where this principle is well understood and acted on, good shooting must be the result, provided there be no physical obstacle, and the necessary aids and appliances are not wanting, one of the most essential of which is a good and suitable gun.

In securing a first-rate gun there is no difficulty, as most of the London makers are equally good; but a gun may be first-rate and at the same time altogether unsuitable to the person using it, if he has given his orders indiscriminately, or taken any gun the gun-maker may have thought proper to recommend. A good and experienced shot may shoot well with any good gun, whatever its peculiar make may be, but he will shoot better with one that exactly suits him, especially in quick shooting in cover; it is therefore essential, in the first place, to ascertain the form and make of gun you require, and give your orders accordingly; and one of the most important features in a gun, as to your advantageous management of it, is the

length of the stock between the trigger and heel plate, which has more influence on correct shooting than any other circumstance, especially if the gun be a heavy one. pend upon the length of your arms-if these be short, the interval should be 14 inches to 14; for a person of middle stature, 144 inches; and for a tall person with long arms, 14 to 15 inches. If a person with long arms were to use a heavy gun with the interval of only 14 inches between the trigger and heel plate, however good a shot he might be, he would find himself seriously disappointed, especially in snipe shooting, as the gun would scarcely ever come up to the object on his first bringing it to his shoulder, and he would constantly shoot under rising birds, particularly cocks. Let those who are sceptical on this point try the experiment, and I believe they will find my theory correct: even an eighth of an inch makes a wonderful difference in this respect.

The requisite interval will de

The next consideration is the bend or inflection of the stock, and this will be in proportion to the length of the neck; a short neck requiring a straight stock. But the bend of the stock is not of so much consequence as its proper length; because if the bend were exactly what it ought to be, the gun would not come up properly, so as to cover at first sight the object to which you wished to direct it, if the stock were a quarter or half of

an inch too short. Having the bend and length of the stock all right, the next portions worthy of consideration are the locks, which are as important to good shooting as any other part of the gun, especially if you have several guns. With bad locks, or with locks of too great or of unequal strength, either by the main spring or scear spring being too powerful, or the incision in the tumbler being too deep, it is impossible to shoot well; and unless especial care be taken in giving precise orders in this particular, there may be great annoyance and disappointment. I invite attention to this point because I have not unfrequently met with guns made by first-rate makers signally deficient in this respect, although they were highly finished in every other particular; the fault having arisen solely from carelessness and inattention.

If your locks are of equal strength, and the stocks of the same length, the same force will be required to pull the trigger, and there will be no disappointment; but if your locks be unequal in strength in the different guns, the easier locks will go off before you are prepared, and the harder ones not till you have given a second pull, and the point of your gun be lowered, than which nothing is more vexatious; and as with a long stock the finger will come more readily and more heavily upon the trigger than with a short stock, it is of as much importance to have your stocks of

similar length as it is to have your locks of equal strength. The above statements being the result of long and frequent experience, I think will be found to be correct, and well worthy of attention.

I must not omit to mention that the bend of the stock is much more influenced by the direction which that part of it takes which lies between the locks and the tip, than by the slope of that part which is grasped by the right hand, lying between the locks and the heel plate; it is therefore of consequence that this should be attended to, inasmuch as the correct elevation of the point of the gun depends much on accuracy in this respect. All French guns, which are objectionable in every other point of view, relatively to ours, are unexceptionable in this particular. I have put many of them to my shoulder, and scarcely ever found one that did not come up well and cover the object to which it was directed. I never, however, fired a single shot with one during the many years I was in France, having a very strong, but I believe not unreasonable, prejudice against them, from my own personal knowledge of the numerous accidents which arrived at the commencement of every season, from the bursting of the barrels. However low in price a French gun may be, the stock is sure to be disfigured by some ornament or other; and those of a high price are covered with them, and

generally with a cheek plate; the tout ensemble of the finish and ornamental part being quite opposed, in every respect, to the simplicity and solidity which characterises English guns, and which is at the same time agreeable to English taste.

Independent of this, the average run of calibres is 17, 18, and 19; and there are some even smaller. Where guns are got up very cheap, as they are in the provincial towns in France, with this small calibre, the frequency of accidents I think is very intelligible, more especially when it is known that the French are very careless with their guns, and very negligent in cleaning them. The locks of the common guns are execrable; indeed the best of French locks that I have ever seen are very inferior to ours. I am, however, speaking of ten years ago, so that they may possibly have made progress since that period. A Frenchman who met me out shooting on one occasion observed my gun, which was of 12 calibre, his being about 18; he was perfectly astonished, and very facetiously observed: "Mais, mon ami, quand vous manquez avec un fusil comme cela, c'est, que vous vous trompez de paroisse."

I have made no remarks in this chapter respecting weight or calibre, those points being matters of taste and circumstance. The sizes I prefer are 12, 13, and 14; 14 for the commencement of the season, and 12 subsequently. The