The picture is one of several by Ansdell inspired by the sandhills at Lytham in Lancashire, where he built himself a house, 'The Starr Hills', in 1860. Arthur Todd in his Life of the artist describes the view: 'to the south would lie an uninterupted view across the estuary to Southport; in a south-westerly direction would be the open sea. Westward one could get a fine view of the sand dunes.' This landscape is skillfully reproduced in our picture.

Ansdell had exhibited a picture of Lytham Sandhills at the Royal Academy as early as 1852, and in 1864, the date of our picture, he showed yet another, calling it Lytham Sand-hills - Southport in the Distance. This cannot, however, be our picture, since the Art Journal described it as having 'black and white cattle ... in the foreground.' The foreground of our picture is dominated by the figure of a young boy surrounded by the prizes of his shoot. Todd mentions that Ansdell's son was granted special permission to shoot rabbits on the dunes.