For shooting at pigeons, with intent to kill, the penalty would (by 2 Geo. II.) be the same as for killing one pigeon, viz. 20s. Informations for these offences must be commenced within two months.
In pigeon-shooting the most extraordinary performance was by Tupor, the gamekeeper of Sir H. Mildmay, (the same person who broke the sow to stand to game,) who, for a considerable wager, shot six pigeons out of ten with a single ball.
Tupor afterwards, to decide a bet, hit a cricket-ball, with common shot, twelve times successively, betwixt the wickets, bowled by Harris, one of the sharpest bowlers in the Hambleton Club. He is also said to have killed swallows with a single ball.
The next was effected by Mr. Elliot, at Rudgewick, in Sussex, who undertook to kill fifty pigeons at fifty shots; it was decided near Petworth, at Tillington, and notwithstanding the wind was high, he killed forty-five: it was allowed he hit every bird, and that he would have succeeded but for the above circumstance. He had but one gun, the touch-hole of which fairly melted.
Four gentlemen of Camberwell undertook, for a wager of five guineas a side, to shoot at twelve pigeons, and great bets were depending, but to the mortification of the persons present, they neither of them brought down a single bird.
Mr. Keene, of Hammersmith, killed twenty pigeons in twenty-one shots, from a trap at the regular twenty-one yards’ distance, and in March, 1811, he killed, in a match against Mr. Elliot, the same number, beating his adversary by one.
In Wiltshire, the same year, Captain Hicks shot against the gamekeeper of Mr. Maurice, at fifteen pigeons, turned off at the same distance; each killed the whole, and in shooting off the ties, the former missed his sixth bird, and lost the match, which was for two hundred guineas.—Moubray—Daniel.
Pike, s. A long lance used by the foot soldiers to keep off the horse, to which bayonets have succeeded; a fork used in husbandry; among turners, two iron springs between which anything to be turned is fastened; a large fish of prey.
