My own experience as regards marksmanship was much the same as my
experience as regards horsemanship. There are men whose eye and hand are
so quick and so sure that they achieve a perfection of marksmanship to
which no practice will enable ordinary men to attain. There are other
men who cannot learn to shoot with any accuracy at all. In between come
the mass of men of ordinary abilities who, if they choose resolutely to
practice, can by sheer industry and judgment make themselves fair rifle
shots. The men who show this requisite industry and judgment can without
special difficulty raise themselves to the second class of respectable
rifle shots; and it is to this class that I belong. But to have reached
this point of marksmanship with the rifle at a target by no means
implies ability to hit game in the field, especially dangerous game. All
kinds of other qualities, moral and physical, enter into being a good
hunter, and especially a good hunter after dangerous game, just as all
kinds of other qualities in addition to skill with the rifle enter
into being a good soldier. With dangerous game, after a fair degree of
efficiency with the rifle has been attained, the prime requisites are
cool judgment and that kind of nerve which consists in avoiding being
rattled. Any beginner is apt to have "buck fever," and therefore no
beginner should go at dangerous game.

Buck fever means a state of intense nervous excitement which may be
entirely divorced from timidity. It may affect a man the first time he
has to speak to a large audience just as it affects him the first time
he sees a buck or goes into battle. What such a man needs is not courage
but nerve control, cool-headedness. This he can get only by actual
practice. He must, by custom and repeated exercise of self-mastery, get
his nerves thoroughly under control. This is largely a matter of habit,
in the sense of repeated effort and repeated exercise of will power. If