Nimrod and the Nightjar's Eggs
INEVER met Jim Corbett, who died the other day. He must have been one of the greatest big-game hunters of his time, and I shall always remember, as an example of how to conduct a post-mortem on danger, his story of the nightjar's eggs in The Man-Eaters of Kuniaon. While following a man-eating tigress down a narrow ravine he found a nightjar's nest with two eggs in it and took them for his collection. Having nothing to put them in, he carried them in his left hand. A few minutes later, rounding a corner, he glanced over his shoulder and found himself gazing into the eyes of the tigress, crouched ready to spring on a ledge of rock with her head eight feet away from his. The eggs automatically immobilised his left hand. Using his right arm only, he very slowly brought his rifle (luckily a light one) through three-quarters of a circle and up into the aim: and shot the tigress dead. Thinking it over afterwards, he realised that if lie had not been carrying the eggs he would have had both hands on the rifle, would instinctively have swung round and would in doing so have alarmed the tigress. triggered off her spring and almost certainly been killed. Most people would not have seen as far as this into the truth of the situation and in telling the story would have represented the eggs (which Corbett immediately afterwards went back and restored to the nightjar) as an almost crippling handicap, miraculously overcome.
In Corbett's obituary in The Times it said that he had been given his first rifle when he was eight years old. That Was of course in India, where there is plenty of room and where the boy would have had a loyal and inseparable attendant to look after the rifle and supervise his use of it: in ordinary circumstances eight is far too early an age for a boy to be allowed the use of any form of firearm. Mr. Robert Churchill, a great authority in these matters, has some sensible things to say on this subject in his recently published book, Game Shooting (Michael Joseph, 42s.); and since there must be a number of parents who are wondering when they should (and how, with all the rabbits dead, they can) enter their sons to this sport. I propose to devote this article to their interests. Readers who regard everything to do with shooting with abhorrence are, I anti afraid, out of luck. head and take a dangerous shot. It is far better to, keep him right out of this mekse, which always takes place in the middle of the field, and station him, under supervision, in the hedge or wood to which any rabbits who escape from it are likely to make their way. He will not get many shots, but at least they will be safe ones.
• At present, of course, rabbits are almost as extinct as wolves in these islands, and the outlook for boys who have been promised that they can start shooting next holidays is bleak. Probably the safest 'game' for a boy to go after is grey squirrels, for he will almost always be firing upwards into the tree-tops and thus cannot put anyone in danger; he can moreover, if he or his father gets affiliated to a squirrel club registered with the County Agricultural Executive Committee, be reimbursed for the tails he produces either in cartridges or in cash.
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