Be liberal in your shots; do not grudge ammunition, nor dread the disgrace of a miss--the disgrace of eluding the trial is far greater; and no man who waits for open shots, and acquires a hesitating manner, will ever effect anything brilliant. If you miss, there are always plenty of excellent excuses at hand--your foot slipped, the bird dodged, a tree intervened; or, you hit him hard, cut out his feathers, or even killed him stone dead, but he did not fall at once. If you doubt the validity of these excuses, go out with the best shot you know and observe whether he does not furnish you with ten times the number in a week.
Now, the author cannot shoot, and never could; but he manages to bring home as many quail, wood cock, snipe, rail, ruffed grouse, and ducks, on the average, as any of his friends. He observes that most of them miss as often as he does, with no better excuses, and some far oftener; but still he never, to the best of his belief, saw the season during which he killed--that is, bagged--one-half of the birds he shot at. Some professionals, of course, shoot at one kind of game wonderfully; the gunners of Long Island Bay are astoundingly accurate on wild-fowl, but would not kill one quail in a week; while some men who could scarcely touch a duck, handle their guns splendidly in the thickest cover. Professionals, however, usually yield the best chances to their employers, and may be more skilful than they seem; but among amateurs the author claims a rank that will at least entitle him to judge of others.
The majority of persons rarely consider how many birds escape, without the fault of the marksman; at over thirty yards the best gun, especially when a little dirty, will leave openings in the charge where a bird may be hit with only one shot, if at all. Ducks, the larger bay-snipe, ruffed grouse, and, above all, quail late in the season, will carry off several shots--flying away apparently unhurt, although in the end they may fall dead. If the gun was held perfectly straight this would happen less frequently; but to so hold it is almost impossible, for no living man could kill, once in a dozen times, a flying bird with a single ball; and even then the probabilities are, that a yellow-leg snipe shot at more than thirty-five yards off, would once in five times carry away the few pellets that may strike him; and at forty yards escape entirely untouched. If the reader will select the best target his gun can make with an ounce of No. 8 shot at forty yards, and see how many spaces there are entirely vacant large enough to contain a snipe, he will be convinced that the above statement is correct; and at fifty yards, the chances are three to one against the marksman. Sir Francis Francis, who is a good authority in England, says, that to kill one bird in two shots is good shooting; and there the grounds are almost always open, while the reverse is the case with us.