This is the only way to keep the lot off and prevent being attacked by the rest while you are fighting one.
Get your back against a wall or something if possible so that they can only get at you from in front.
Taking a fresh one for each shot is my experience in big-game shooting when you come on a lot which are all shootable.
If you pick out one and he does not drop to your shot and you pump several more shots into him till he does drop, you may find afterwards that you have wasted shots on an already dying animal, and let others within range escape.
As an instance of doing everything wrong and being praised for it, the following quotation from a daily paper is hard to beat.
The writer of the article evidently approves greatly of a woman firing at random into the darkness when she hears a suspicious noise.
Even if the noise was made by burglars outside, she was just in the best position in the lighted window, to get killed. An innocent man might plead he was shooting her in self-defence.
A pleasant neighbourhood to live in when a woman shoots at random into the night when she hears a noise!
Below is the article in question omitting names. The pa.s.sers-by as well as the lady must have had an "exciting experience."
SHOTS IN THE DARK
_Lady"s Midnight Encounter with Burglars_
Mrs. X. had an exciting experience just after midnight on Sat.u.r.day.
She was in her bedroom, which is on a level with the lawn, when she heard noises in the shrubbery.
As she thought that men were there she procured a revolver, and, standing in the lighted window, called out, "If you do not leave I"ll shoot." There was no answer, so she fired, and there was a scurrying of feet to another clump of trees. Again she called out and as there was no reply she fired a second and a third time, and then the figures of several men were seen running off as fast as they could.
And no wonder!
CHAPTER XLIII
PROTECTING THE EYES AND EARS
There is no direct danger to the eyes in pistol shooting, that is to say, with a good pistol there is no chance of a blow back of fire into the eyes, as there is in a cheap, rim fire rifle. The eyes are apt, however, to get bloodshot and sore from powder smoke blown back into them in a head wind, especially from the ejecting cartridge of an automatic pistol.
When doing much shooting daily out-of-doors it is well to wear a pair of big diameter spectacles fitting well behind the ears so that they do not shift. The spectacles may be of plain white gla.s.s, or else of a colour to suit the state of the sunlight.
Blue or grey used to be the usual colours; lately yellow-green seems to be the colour most recommended by oculists.
I found such yellow-green gla.s.ses a great relief to the eyes when bear shooting in the glare of sunlight on snow.
I am referring to men who have normal eyesight, not to those who have already to wear gla.s.ses _to correct vision_.
It is important to protect the ears, perhaps even more important than the eyes. There is very little danger to the eyes but the ears are in very real danger when shooting.
Even the comparatively slight noise when shooting the gallery .44 ammunition or the short rifle .22, from constant pounding on the same note, affects the ears unless they are protected.
A concert pianist, one would think, by the noise he makes on the piano, would injure his ears even more than a pistol shot does, as the noise he makes is much louder.
Perhaps he does injure his ears and that is the reason he has to pound so hard and breaks the piano strings in his efforts to hear his own music.
Be that as it may, playing a variety of notes saves his ears as he does not have the constant hit on the one note and with the same intensity.
The ear is the least known of the various organs and is the one least successfully treated.
The usual medical man has the following treatment:
Pour warm oil into the ear, then wash out with warm water (a very successful way to introduce hurtful microbes into the ear).
When this fails the Eustachian tubes are blown out with a "Politzer Bag."
When this also fails some have a little instrument which buzzes like a b.u.mble bee or sings like a mosquito which the patient has to listen to.
If even this treatment fails then the patient is bowed out as incurable.
Prevention is better than non-cure, so protect your ears when shooting.
A pistol is unlikely to burst the ear drum unless fired with a full charge in a small room or close to the ear, but pistol-fire seems to have a worse effect on the ears than the louder report from a rifle or shotgun, owing probably to the shortness of the pistol barrel bringing the discharge nearer to the ear.
The worst of all for the ears is when a man shoots past another"s head from close behind.
Gout or catarrh aggravates this evil and a man who never shoots may get "hard of hearing" and have constant singing in his ears from these diseases alone.
There is the later stage of attacks of vertigo when the semicircular ca.n.a.ls are involved. Few aurists are successful in curing this.
There is only one ear protector which I have found of any use and I have tried all that have come out.
It is called the Elliott Ear Protector and is made by J. A. R. Elliott, Box 201, New York City, U. S. A.
Savory & Moore of 143 New Bond Street, London and Gieve, Mathews & Seagrove, Portsmouth, England have them in stock.
Most other ear protectors act on the wrong principle and are painful to wear and they bring on giddiness.
To stuff the ears with cotton wool makes the pressure of air on the outside of the drum differ from the air coming through the Eustachian tube if this latter is blocked more or less by catarrh (as it is in nine out of ten persons, especially smokers or residents in damp climates). This inequality is increased and harm is done to the ear.
When a cold is supposed to be cured, it often is not but has gone from the early, through the acute, and on to the chronic stage. It then lies dormant, to wake up every time a fresh cold is caught, and then takes a deeper hold in the outer, middle, and inner ear. Often what is put down to gun deafness is really chronic catarrh and gout. People who have never fired a shot suffer from gun deafness and noises in the head.
As soon as a cold has ceased "to run" people think it is cured. They neglect to drive it entirely out of the system and it lies smouldering to take the earliest opportunity to flare up again, like a banked-up fire.
Some recommend wool mixture with modelling wax forced into the outer ear.
This not only has the defects of plain cotton wool but it is a compound impossible to fully take out again. The modelling composition sticks and remains in all the crevices of the ear and if forced repeatedly in dislocates the outer ear pa.s.sage.
I use modelling wax for sculpture, and it is impossible to clean it out of the nails even with manicure instruments. It has to be dissolved with turpentine and peroxide which would ruin ears if used for them.