It is well to visualize such a '' bag" in
its bare details. A number of platoons of beaters are engaged. They drive the birds into great fields of roots and sometimes drive then, backwards and forwards, and contrive all sorts of methods of keeping them condensed. Occasionally the birds, which, though rapid flyers, tire if long flights are imposed, are already weary when they are at last driven towards the guns. Behind a hedge or belt wait men selected solely for their professional skill as marksmen. They are equipped with two or three guns passed to then, as another is emptied by trained loaders. Even with three guns the metal may become unpleasantly hot to hold, so rapid is the lire. In this furious burst of tiring no man can remember individual shots. He cannot sec at all what any neighbour is doing. He is like a slaughterman in the Chicago slaughterhouse. He is there professionally to kill, not for his own amusement, butt in order to lay on the head of his host the wreath of a reputation for surpassing the best on record. The number of birds killed is the sole lest of the day.
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