ROYAL GUN

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 126, 25 November 1930, Page 9

ROYAL GUN

KING'S FINE EYE

SOME HUNTING FEATS

TRAINED IN SPORT

A great day in Britain's shooting calendar, and particularly in that of King George, who has a reputation as an. excellent shot, is Ist October, says the "New York Times." The pheasant season gives him the shots in which he is most expert —fast, oncoming "rocketer" pheasants which demand rapid and faultless aim. King George follows in the footsteps of his father, the- lato King Edward VII who was keenly desirous that his son should be brought up in the best traditions of sport and gave him a.careful and systematic training. The present King, as a boy, devoted himself, among other things, to practiso in shooting, first the humble air gun, then the single-barrelled, and finally the double-barrelled gun. He lost no opportunity of perfecting himself at the game, and developed his great skill despite the fact that he spent several years abroad as an executive officer of the navy, and opportunities for sport were few and far between. Since those days his frequent appearances with a gun have testified to his interest. Indeed, it was when out duck shooting in the winter of 1928 that he contracted his long and serious illness. KNOWS BIRDS. The King has a wide knowledge of •the habits not only of pheasants and partridges but of wild duck. Ho times •the speed of birds and estimates their height with a- skill that reflects the careful training of his boyhood days, and drops a dozen "rocketers" with as many shots. His finest performance, and'one that would be hard to surpass, was taking four pheasants with four successive shots, the four being hit before the first had reached the ground. When on the Scottish moors at his Highland home of Balmoral, the King tramps for miles over the heather, changing1 the vantage point at times and so shifting to where the best sport is to be had. The King thoroughly enjoys the test of skill with grouse, and he has been known to take two birds approaching ■with a right and left, another as they sweep overhead like an arrow in flight, and two more going away—fiv© birds in all. This is a fine performance jwhen one considers that it involves .changing gj_ns twice, a clean catch of (the weapon aud.no bungling—for in this lightning game quarters of seconds are ,vital —and a rapid synchronisation of jeye and arm, the whole adjustment having to bo repeated five times in about as many seconds. GREATER TEST. Duck shooting, which comes with October, calls perhaps for even better imarksmanship that partridge' or pheasant shooting. Few people realise that a duck when. on. the wing is moving at .between 70 and 100 miles per hour. It flies exceptionally fast when over land, ana makes another real test of quickjiess and accuracy of aim. . Hhe King is also an excellent shot with duck. King George has had opportunity to show his skill as a hunter of big game. ( When ha went to India in 1911 for the jCoronation Durbar the ; Indian chiefs yied with one another in their endeavours to arrange shoots of both, small and big game, although, tho limited time at the King's disposal and the vastness of the, programme made it impossible for lim to accept more than ono or two. The best of these was that arranged fey the Maharaja of Nopal, whose territory includes the famous Terai running along the foothills of the Himalayas,.a noted haunt of tigers. Altogether the ,Terai is one of the finest game tracts in the world, and the Maharaja wan determined to do things on. a royal scale and leave.no stone unturned to insure a record bag. SPECIAL ROAD. From a. chosen point on the railway £c cut a road through the dense jungle some thirty miles in length, and at the far end established two camps with palatial shooting boxes, one of them being almost a perfect example, on a small scale, of a royal residence in London, so that when ths guest enter- ' cd his own sanctum and study he might Lave been at home in London. But this was by no means all. Lawns were laid out and fine rose trees were planted; in fact, the gardens of Buckingham Palace had been reproduced in the heart of the wild and little-known Jungles of Nepal. For more than a year prior to the King's arrival preparations had been going on; the country for a considerable distance, around had been left undisturbed, and when the guest arrived he was certainly in a hunter's paraBise. But it did not follow that with all these preparations the matter of shooting would be an easy one; on the contrary, the grass is high and dense, often growing to twenty feet and moro, - making it correspondingly difficult and "'dangerous to spot and account for the "game. . . ■. ' ■ ' Six hundred and thirty-four elephants were employed for beating-pur-.poses, together with a whole army of retainers and servants, who, despite their numbers, never, hampered the movements of the shooting party. TWO FEATS. The King spent several days in this wonderful camp. Arriving early one morning, ho decided to go out, so the elephants were brought up and a start made. They had gone only a short distance when a tiger burst from cover with a roar and took a flying leap over a wide ditch near where the King was passing. Tho tiger was actually in mid-air when he hit it with a beautiful shot through the neck, which killed it instantly. This extraordinary shot was seen by a number of the Maharaja s staff and retainers, and at a single leap tho King's prestige went sky high. In the afternoon of the same day he .was out again. The line of elephants ,was advancing through the jungle, the grass at this point being upward of fifteen feet in height. The King's elephant was crashing through it with measured tread when some little distance ahead two rhinoceroses appeared. The rhino, despite his hugh bulk and ungainly appearance, is a, rapid mover; he can outdistance a horse, so ■be provides'a moving target. Both animals had scented danger and were in full flight through a clearing in the jungle when the King and his party came up. The King dropped them both, the first with his right bar<rel—a dean dead hit, the second being brought down with his left, and dispatched with another shot. ■ King George is president of the fam- . ous Shikar Club, an exclusive body of small and big game hunters, whose vice-president ana chairman are the Duke of Connaught and Lord Lonsdale, the latter perhaps the best known, of England's sporting peers. .■"■-.; The term "shikar" is a Persian word signifying the pursuit of game in general, ana "shikari" is a hunter. The club maintains a high standard of sportsmanship, for squandered bullets and swollen game bags do not .appeal to it. The. test lies in a love of forest, mountain, and plain, in the strenuous pursuit of wary and dangerous quarry, in the instinct for a well-devised approach to a fair shooting distance, and in* the patient retrieve of a wounded swiimal or bird.