Читать книгу The Complete English Wing Shot онлайн

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When it was a literary fashion to abuse covert shooting as butchery and grouse driving as no sport, it was not done by sportsmen of the other school; and later, when the literary genius of the period was turned in the opposite direction, and we were constantly being told that a walk with a gun and dog was pleasant but no sport, it was only done by those who were a little afraid of being out of the fashion. I have been so unfashionable as to defend both by turns, and I have always been of opinion that any sport which appeared to be growing unpopular was worthy of the little support I could give it. It will probably greatly surprise those who dare not, with imaginative pens, shoot at the tail of a bird, to be told that Mr. R. H. Rimington Wilson recently informed me, that if he were to back himself to kill a number of shots consecutively he would select driven birds in preference to walked-up game; and besides, that he preferred to be let loose on a snipe bog to his own, or any other, big driving days. My opinion has been that you can always make any sort of shooting a little more difficult than your own performance can satisfactorily accomplish to the gratification of your own most critical sense.