as accurately on the move as if he were standing still. The actual method of gathering up the ball is the same as when he stands where he is and waits for it.
There are many ways of practising fielding. Even two men can do a good deal together if they take it in turn to hit and to field. It is an excellent arrangement for a number of men or boys to scatter in a rough semicircle while another is hitting catches and ground balls to them. And it is capital exercise for the hitter. But apart from matches, scratch games afford the best fielding practice, because the fieldsmen have the ball hit to them in their various positions just as in real matches, and they can also practise returning the ball to the wicket. School elevens should take the trouble to drill in this way, with some competent adviser looking on and coaching them. It is a commonplace that all school elevens, whatever their batting and bowling, should field almost, if not quite, as well as a first-class team. Certainly this is true of the larger schools. Much improvement can be brought about in a boy's fielding if he is taken separately, fed with various kinds of catches and ground balls, and told each time whether he has fielded the ball properly or not. Boys, and I am afraid men too, are in the habit of missing in matches catches that they would hold with perfect ease in practice. This is no doubt due to nervousness. Here, again, nothing but practice can do much good. Nervousness often disappears as experience grows. After all, courage and nerve are largely matters of habit. A sailor would fear to tackle a herd of unruly cattle just as much as a stockman would fear to run up a high rigging. But both may be brave and steady enough in positions to which they are accustomed. So with cricket. A steeple-high catch in the country begins to lose its terrors when one has caught a dozen such the evening before at fielding practice.
With regard to catching, it is impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast rules as to the best methods, My own short experience has shown me that catches may be well caught with the hands in all sorts of positions. Of these some are clearly better than others theoretically. But theories have a way of not meeting particular cases, so one can hardly afford to dogmatise.
Here is an illustration of the position generally adopted with slight modifications by good fields, but a beginner must find out for himself the method that comes most natural and convenient to him.
It must be confessed that more catches are missed when the
