P EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION BY ERIC PARKER ETER HAWKER was born in London on December 24, 1786, and was destined, following his father and forefathers, for the Army. He was gazetted cornet to the 1st Royal Dragoons in 1801, and promoted Lieutenant in 1802. In the next year he exchanged into the 14th Light Dragoons, and six years later, under Sir Arthur Wellesley, led his squadron and won for the colours of his regiment the honour "Douro." At Talavera, that same summer, he was shot through the thigh-a wound that troubled him to the day of his death-and in 1813 he was gazetted out of the Army, or as he himself puts it in his diary, he was driven out of the Service for no other reason than what ought to have been a recommendation," the wounds which prevented him so long from doing his duty. As, however, his surgeon, Sir Everard Home, considered that his life was saved by leaving the Army (he was still being operated on for his wound four years after receiving it), we need not feel ungrateful to-day for what he resented as an injustice. For if he was first in his own mind a soldier, he is to us first and foremost a sportsman. His life was devoted to sport. From the day that he left the Army his chief interest in the world was shooting. We read the diary which he kept from the year 1802 to the year of his death, and we find, interspersed with occasional records of travel, page after page of shooting-partridge shooting, snipe shooting, pheasant shooting, and, of course, wildfowling in his punt with his famous guns. He is an angler as well as a shot; his entries of flyfishing at Longparish could be set side by side with the pages of Stoddart or Henderson; but we come back again and again to his days and nights spent on land and sea in shooting. And what a great game shot he was! There was never, surely, a man who spent himself harder in pursuing his sport, or could write down braver figures to chronicle it. His records V of hits and misses, added up for contrast, would make an astonishing sum in proportion. Day after day he comes back from partridge shooting not only without a miss, but even with more birds than he fired shots. Here are entries from his diary spread over a long term of years; most of them with an added comment by their author-a splendid crescendo: Oct. 13, 1813. Memorandum of my shooting in Dorsetshire, with exact account of shots fired. HITS (Wounded birds not included) Pheasants bagged 29; lost 4 Hares (except the one wounded; all I shot at) MISSES Fair shots (within distance) i Namely 1 pheasant, which turned at the moment fired, and which I secured with second barrel; I hare, which I so crippled that nothing but her crawling into forbidden ground could have saved her; I partridge, by my foot slipping at the moment I fired. An unpardonable miss at a jack snipe. Two equally shameful misses at partridges. In all 6 6 Sept. 3, 1815. "I have now completed 29 birds out of 15 double shots. I did this with my old 22-gauge gun; last year I killed 27 birds out of 14 double shots with a 14-gauge gun; but this last is far better, as the birds required such quick shooting. As far as I could learn at Manton and Egg's, etc., my having this wild season bagged 14 double shots successively is the best shooting that has been accomplished in England.” Sept. 16, 1816. "I never in my life had such a satisfactory day's shooting. I had 8 doublets and bagged both my birds EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION vii every time, and having once killed 2 at one shot with my first barrel, I made 37 head of game in 36 shots. Had I at all picked my shots, I should not have thought this any such very extraordinary performance; but so far from this a great number of my birds were killed at long distances, and with instantaneous rapidity of shooting. I had my favourite 14gauge barrels of Joe Manton's, and Mr. Butts's cylinder powder. I have now killed 60 shots in succession, and 93 birds, with only one miss." Oct. 2, 1815. "I killed in two hours 24 pheasants in 24 shots, bagging every bird." Sept. 1, 1819. "I have now to record one of the most brilliant day's shooting I ever made in my life, when I consider the many disadvantages I had to encounter. Two thirds of the birds I killed were sprung without the dogs finding them. The coveys were wilder than I ever yet saw them in the first part of the season... Misses 4 very long shots, 2 of which were struck and feathered. Kills 45 partridges and I hare, bagged." Nov. 11, 1820. "Seven snipes and 5 jack snipes (all I shot at), making in these last few days 20 snipes without missing a shot." Sept. 17, 1821. "I made one singular shot with the rapidity of lightning, viz. 5 birds rose at about 40 yards; I cut down and bagged 4 (just as they were in line together) at a shot with the first barrel, and knocked down the fifth bird in most handsome style with the second barrel, making in all 23 birds with 20 shots." Sept. 4, 1826. "I bagged 56 partridges and (for our county in one day, a miracle) 7 hares in nine hours. I may safely say I did not lose a bird by bad shooting the whole day, as the only two fair shots I missed were at single birds, both of which I secured with my second barrel. Taking everything into consideration, this is the greatest day I ever had in my life." Sept. 1, 1827. "The greatest day on record here; 102 partridges and I hare, besides 3 brace more birds shot and lost." Sept. 1, 1837. "I bagged 24 partridges and 2 hares without one miss, and I made seven brilliant double shots." |