Shooting like a gentleman.(The Straggler)(bird shooting)

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

THE luckiest bird in the world lives in a wood near Reading, Pa. He popped up out of the tall grass 30 yards in front of me. "Popped" isn't quite right. These were farm-bred pheasants, well-fed and not much keen on flying. They had been scattered around the 40-odd acres of grass early that morning, before we arrived. This particular bird was one of the more energetic ones, though, and he was up above head height before I'd gotten the gun to my shoulder. I fired off a shot, which comprehensively missed. The bird took off to my right. Tracking him, I worked the action and fired again, missing again. There wasn't even the consolatory feather or two drifting down.

The four of us were in extended line across the field, I at the left-hand end. That charmed bird proceeded to fly straight across the front of the line at about the same distance, but gaining height laboriously with his farm-fattened wings. My three companions--one of them an experienced hunter--each in turn fired at him, but he got away and disappeared into the woods at our right, having survived eight or ten bursts of shot.

At the risk of violating the Excuse Rule (which is: No excuses!), I at least can plead rookie status--this was my first bird shoot--and an unfamiliar borrowed gun. I am handicapped, too, by gun-safety neurosis. I was introduced to target shooting at age 13 by instructors who were, understandably, very nervous indeed at finding themselves in charge of a platoon of giggling adolescents armed with rifles. They hammered the safety rules relentlessly into our silly heads, supplementing the instruction with Ministry of Defence movies portraying, with staggering gruesomeness, the consequences of mishandling guns and explosives. Full of the ghoulish instincts normal among early-teen boys, we enjoyed the gory movies as much as we did the shooting, but we got the point.

The effect of these stern early lessons on one's adult field-shooting skills is analogous to the result Freud ascribed to over-rigorous potty training. The dog points; the grass moves; a bird comes up. Okay, where's the damn safety on this thing? Got it. Now, where'd the dog go? There he is. Where's Tom? I see him. Where's Vin? Got him. Where's Randy? Over there, right. Great, now where's the bird? In birdie heaven by this time, that's where, with a good measure of my companions' shot in him. I felt like Mr. Winkle in The Pickwick Papers.

 
   Bang, bang, went a couple of guns;--the 
   smoke swept quickly away over the field, 
   and curled into the air. 

"Where are they?" said Mr. Winkle, in a state of the highest excitement, turning round and round in all directions. "Where are they? Tell me when to fire. Where are they--where are they?"