Country Life
By IAN NIALL
BEING neither a very expert shot nor an economist, I am not really in a position to say whether pigeon shooting pays or doesn't, but it gets certain results, and as yet no one has devised an alternative method to that of filling the air with loud bangs and showers of lead in the hope of bringing down a few pigeons during the barrage. Not long ago 1 read about a plan to give pigeons a drug so that fai'mers could go out and wring the necks of the pests that had taken the bait and doped themselves, but this sort of thing doesn't seem to have caught on yet, and the blue peril flourishes five days out of six. On the sixth day in my part of the world pigeon shoots are held, and at the weekend I found myself pressed into service if not to kill pigeons, then to keep them on the move so that better shots might kill them and reduce the damage being done to grecnstuff.
I took my stand, but the pigeons kept out of my way with one exception which flew high over my head. It cost me a single cartridge or sixpence ha'penny to find out that he had been feeding on ivy berries. I had no doubt that had he found a field of spring greens or winter cabbage his crop would have been stuffed with those things, but I experienced a feeling of anticlimax to discover that the first pigeon I have shot for many a day turned out to be a comparatively innocent one!
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