LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS (FIRST SERIES, SECOND SERIES, THIRD SERIES). By Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, Bart. THREE VOLUME SET.

1890, 1892, 1896 1st editions. 8vo (137 x 196mm). Ppx,263;xiv,524;xxx,630,ads. B/w plates and illustrations by Whymper, Millais, de Bree and the author. Matching green cloth, upper boards and spines titled in gilt.

A set of first editions of all three volumes of Letters to Young Shooters, with identical provenance (B.J. Hodgson). First Series: On the choice and use of a gun. Second Series: On the production, preservation and killing of game, with directions in shooting woodpigeons and breaking in retrievers. Third Series: comprising a short natural history of British wildfowl and complete directions in shooting wildfowl on the coast and inland. Chapters include: FIRST SERIES: Remarks on guns old and new; On the quality, manufacture and cost of modern guns; On the fit and choice of a gun (two chapters); The merits of chokes and cylinders (two chapters); How to shoot safely, with remarks on loaders, and the safe handling of a gun in the field; On killing game, and shooting generally, in a sportsmanlike manner; On correct aiming (four chapters); On the care and cleaning of guns (two chapters); On the loading o game-guns (two chapters, powder and shot); A few simple directions in target experiments; Cartridges; Game-stop - how to make rabbits lie out, and how to catch wood-pigeons. SECOND SERIES: Remarks on modern game shooting from a PRACTICAL point of view; Pheasant rearing (seven chapters; Advice in selecting an estate for game preservation, with details of the cost of rearing pheasants; Pheasant shooting (three chapters); Partridge shooting (three chapters) with notes on preserving the birds; Grouse shooting (eight chapters); Ground game shooting - rabbits, hares (three chapters); Woodpigeon shooting (three chapters); Notes on breaking dogs for the guns; Retrievers, their selection and behaviour; How to train a retriever in eight lessons;concluding remarks on working young retrievers. THIRD SERIES: Wildfowl shooting, introductory (two chapters); A list, for ready reference, of the wildfowl that frequent, or have occured in the British Islands; Swans; Wild-goose shoting with the shoulder gun; Wild geese; duck shooting with the shoulder gun (six chapters); species of duck (three chapters); Sea-divers; Grebes; cormorants and gannet; Herons and bitterns; Storks, spoonbill, ibis, and cranes; Coot, waterhen, crakes and rails; Bustards, stone curlew, cream-coloured courser, pratincole and dotterel; Plovers (two chapters); turnstone, oyster-catcher, avocet, black winged stilt and phalaropes; The woodcock (two chapters); The snipe (three chapters); Curlew, whimbrels and godwits; Greenshank, redshank, spotted redshank, yellowshank and sanderling; Sandpipers; dunlin, knot, stints and ruff; Rare British wildfowl and their nests. Stanchion-gun (punt-gun) shooting: Forty-nine chapters on the gun itself, including its construction, plus seven further chapters on sailing and manouvering a gun-punt and applying this skill to using it for shooting wildfowl.