10 IMPLEMENTS FOR COLLECTING, AND THEIR USE. 



gcncy, always keep a wad-cutter to fit your gun. You can 

 make serviceable wads of pasteboard, but they are far inferior 

 to felt. Cut them on the flat sawn end of a stick of fire- 

 wood ; the side of a plank does not do very well. Use a 

 wooden mallet, instead of a hammer or hatchet, and so save 

 your cutter. Soft paper is next best after wads ; I have never 

 used rags, cotton or tow, fearing these tinder-like substances 

 might leave a spark in the barrels. Crumbled leaves or grass 

 will answer at a pinch. I have occasionally, in a desperate 

 hurry, loaded and killed without any wadding. 



§5. Other equipments.* a. For the gun. A gun-case will 

 come cheap in the end, especially if j-ou travel much. The 

 usual box, divided into compartments, and well lined, is the 

 best, though the full length leather or india-rubber cloth case 

 answers very well. The box should contain a small kit of 

 tools, such as mainspring-vise, nipple-wrench, screw-driver, 

 etc. A stout hard-wood cleaning rod, with wormer, will be 

 required. It is always safe to have parts of the gun lock, 

 especially mainspring, in duplicate. For muzzle-loaders extra 

 nipples and extra ramrod heads and tips often come into use. 

 For breech-loaders the apparatus for charging the shells is so 

 useful as to be practically indispensable, b. For ammunition. 

 Metal shells or paper cartridges may be carried loose in the 

 large lovt^er coat pocket, or in a leathern satchel. There is 

 said to be a chance of explosion by some unlucky blow, where 

 they are so carried, but I never knew of an instance. Another 

 way is to fix them separately in a row in snug loops of soft 

 leather sewn continuously along a stout waist-belt ; or in sev- 

 eral such horizontal rows on a square piece of thick leather, to 

 be slung by a strap over the shoulder. The appliances for loose 

 ammunition are almost endlessly varied, so every one may eon- 



* Parker Brothers, West Meritlen, Conn., publish a pamplilet which I should 

 advise you to get. I suppose it would be mailed on application. It is oi" course 

 entirely in the business interest of the Parker gun, but gives many useful- hints of 

 general practical applicability, respecting the appliances for guns and ammu- 

 nition. There is a good deal of apparatus that I pass over as not being indispen- 

 sable, but which you might find convenient. 



