Boys when they learn to shoot either go out with the keeper or get shots at jays, hawks, or other vermin in the woods, or they surreptitiously prowl about the hedges and shoot at anything that moves. But there are objections to both these plans for women, who may not have woods in which to range, and it is hardly necessary to say that the shooting of small birds is not to be encouraged. So for the next step I would suggest the clay pigeon. I have found that practice at these is very useful, and the flights are so ingeniously arranged that plenty of variety is given to the shooting. If there are several shooting people in the house, it will be possible to organise little competitions and sweeps which will improve your shooting by the spirit of emulation. I may add, by the way, that in country houses a clay bird shooting competition is a capital thing to fill up the day in the cub-hunting season, when after an early morning's sport, the rest of the day sometimes hangs heavily on our visitors' hands.
The next step is to the rabbit, though bunny is a most difficult and deceptive animal to shoot, having been made by nature at least six inches too short. The best way for a beginner to shoot rabbits is to go out with the ferrets, and get shots at them as they are bolted. I prefer shooting rabbits in this way for quite a beginner, to stalking them in the open when feeding near their holes, as until one is pretty sure of killing them, there is always a danger of wounding them, and then they creep away into their burrows to die miserably. Never shoot at a rabbit going dead away from you, and learn from the first to aim well forward. Of course the easiest of all shots for a beginner is at a hare crossing in covert, but hares are hardly numerous enough in most places and often are more or less preserved for harriers or coursing. By the time you can hit a wood pigeon and bowl over a rabbit neatly, you will have made some progress, and will be able to take up the various kinds of shooting in turn.
I will speak of grouse first, because these birds afford the very best shooting possible. For women who have the opportunity, there is no doubt that driven grouse are in some respects more suitable to their powers than the birds to be obtained after a long fagging tramp over the moors. With the universal popularity of driving, both with shooters and the owners of moors, such opportunities are likely to come frequently in the way of women, whose means enable them to shoot in Scotland. Driving is popular with owners because it is better for the moors, a larger proportion of old and therefore useless and injurious birds being thinned out by this method, than when a moor is shot over dogs in the ordinary way. With shooters it is popular, because driven grouse afford perhaps the finest shots of any known game, with the possible exception of the Himalayan pheasants, as they sweep with their grand rush down the sides of the mountains.