MISCELLANEOUS HINTS. 409 



but destroy ducks ever since lie was big enough to shoulder his 

 father's old musket and take sight over a "blind," — having pain- 

 fully injured the thumb of his right hand, we, having nothing better 

 to do, volunteered to load his gun for him, on condition of a fair 

 proportion of the spoils. Having our patent powder-flask with us, 

 and being accustomed to its use as well as satisfied with its safety, 

 we very naturally commenced loading from its contents, and con- 

 tinued so to do for a considerable time, while our friend was 

 banging away at every moment, but, strange to say, bringing down 

 scarcely a single victim, although those around us were heaping up 

 piles about them ; and so did our partner till we commenced load- 

 ing for him. The old veteran could not account for his bad shooting, 

 and attributed every miss to some new cause, first one thing and 

 then another, cursed the gun, damned the ducks, and finally gave 

 up in despair. We of course were equally as much surprised at 

 his want of success, and even took the gun from his hands and 

 essayed a few shots, but without much effect. The morning had 

 now fully broken, and, upon closer inquiry into the cause of this 

 bad shooting, our partner ascertained, to his no small horror, that 

 we had been loading all the time with fine-grained canister-powder, 

 instead of the coarse-grained article which all duckers prefer ; in 

 fact, they object to using any other kind. 



The indignation of our friend was great when he made this 

 discovery ; and his vanity of shooting well, which had been on 

 the wane for the previous half-hour, was now fully appeased, 

 as he declared that ^^sucli stuff,'" meaning the fine powder, was 

 not fit to make a squib of, let alone bring down a savory canvas- 

 back. 



This powder, however, we had been using the day before on 

 partridges, and had succeeded in killing five brace with it without 

 much difficulty. This anecdote certainly goes to demonstrate how 

 strong the prejudice is among duck-shooters in favor of the coarse 

 powder, and at the same time proves conclusively that, though it 

 would kill partridges at a reasonable distance, it had not force 

 enough to carry heavy shot as strongly as the common coarse- 



