Guns and Vermin On the subject of vermin, one of
the only places known to me person- ally where rabbits (almost extinct in many districts) are a worse plague than they ever have been is over a wide space reserved for gunners practice. Nobody cares to take the risk of flying bullets, and it is extra- ordinary how crooked some recruits can shoot. There is a suspicion that some of them make stray rabbits their target. It is odd that neither rabbits nor pheasants seem to object to. target practice, however loud and long. I have seen pheasants strolling unconcernedly across a range whi': bullets were whistling over their heads. Incidentally, while watching the advance of the Guards below the Pilkhem Ridge in the last war, a cock pheasant flew over my head into the utter desolation of the battleground; and the tremendous bombardment which opened the Somme battle did not in the least alarm a family of quails that clucked all round me.
Previous page
