OUTFITS, AND HINTS ON HUNTING. 13 



there will be no need to run after an animal, nor run away from 

 it either, after you get one fair shot at it.* 



For hunting large birds and small mammals a No. 10 shot- 

 gun is the best ; but if you are specially interested in birds and 

 care little for mammals, a No. 12 breech-loader with top-snap 

 action will be preferable. For my purposes, however, my No. 

 10 double Werner and No. 16 Maynard always worked beauti- 

 fully together, and I think these two sizes afford the best com- 

 bination a collector can iind. Being very strongly built, I often 

 loaded my No. 10 with a single ball, and bagged many a fine 

 Indian bison in that way. 



I always used heavy brass shells with all my shot-guns, for the 

 following reason : I could not spare room to carry paper shells, 

 the rains I encountered would have spoiled too many of them, 

 and away from home they were too expensive a luxury for me 

 to afford. The brass shells are expensive to start with, but 

 they last forever, or until they are lost. 



HINTS ON HUNTING. The duty of a naturalist to his specimen 

 begins when he levels his gun at it in the field. 



Do not shoot a specimen to pieces, or mutilate it beyond 

 recognition by its own mother. 



Study the moral principles of your guns, find out exactly 

 what they will do with what you put into them, and then don't 

 shoot your specimens too much. What is a tiger worth with 

 the top of his head blown off, or a deer with a great hole torn 

 in his side by an explosive bullet ? 



Three vital principles to be observed in hunting specimens 

 are the following : See everything ahead, and allow nothing 

 to see you. Shoot to kill, but shoot so as to get your specimen 

 with the least possible mutilation. A squirrel shot with a rifle 

 is usually unfit for a specimen, and a bird with its legs shot to 

 pieces, mandibles shot off, and half its tail feathers torn to 

 pieces is about the same as no bird at all, unless it happens 

 to be a rare one. In using a rifle, get as close to your game as 

 you can (unless it be a tiger or be.r !), so as to be sure of get- 

 ting it. With the shot-gun, get as far away as you dare, so as 

 to get no more shot into your bird than is necessary to kill it. 



* For further particulars, see Two Years in the Jimgle. New York : Charles Scrib- 

 ncr's Sons. 



