Had I not grown up in a rural American town where hunting was a very common activity among the residents, I doubt I would have ever understood very much about it. Even though my family contained very few hunters (in comparative proportion to those of many of our neighbors), simply living day-to-day, year-in and year-out among so many hunters – of both mammals and birds – was sufficient to acquire an understanding of both the mechanics of the activity, as well as the ethics and psychology of it.