HIGH PHEASANTS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. By Sir Ralph F. Payne-Gallwey, Bart. With a new foreword by John Richards.

(1913) 1996 Tideline Books edition. 8vo (160 x 222mm). Ppviii,79. B/w photograph frontispiece, b/w illustrations, photograph end-papers. Brown boards, spine titled in gilt.

Rediscovered stock! This is a brand new copy that has been lost in storage for quite some time. So a little musty but new and unread. This 1996 Tideline Books edition has a new introduction by John Richards of Halkyn, North Wales, "Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's High Pheasants - in Theory and Practice was the last and one of the most technical of his books, first published in 1913. It is clearly the product of an inquisitive and agile mind. The accumulated experience of a lifetime's study of firearms and shooting are distilled within its pages. Although it must be mentioned that the ingenious experiments were carried out using cartridges loaded with powders current at the time, the results of those tests are still basically relevant today. There can be no doubt that many of the guns Sir Ralph used during the tests are still in active use today since basic English sporting gun design has not changed since then. Nor have the principles of marksmanship, sportsmanship and the desire to bring about a clean kill. Sir Ralph has been correctly described as a more up to date version of the illustrious Colonel Peter Hawker. Certainly Sir Ralph, through his writings, contributed an enormous amount to the understanding of most aspects of shooting. Be that as it may, this book gives an insight into the thought processes of a highly skilled shooting man and a peep back in time to Victorian and Edwardian Britain."