CHAPTER IZ. 
GUNNERY—MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. 
To the young sportsman, armed with the finest of 
implements, and trusting much to them for his suc- 
cess, it is a matter of mortification and surprise how 
well a bad gun will shoot in good hands; never- 
theless, no true sportsman ever lived but, if he 
were able by any self-denial to scrape the means 
together, would purchase a valuable and necessarily 
expensive fowling-piece. Not only isa well made 
and handsomely finished gun safer and lighter than 
a cheap affair manufactured for the wholesale trade ; 
not only does it ordinarily carry closer and recoil 
less ; but it needs fewer repairs, lasts infinitely longer, 
and is always a matter of pride and delight to its 
owner. 
Many guns of inferior workmanship throw shot 
as strongly as those turned out by the best makers— 
although this is not the fact in general—but greater 
weight has to be given to insure tolerable safety, 
and the locks, if not the barrels, are sure to give 
out in a few years; whereas the high-priced article 
will be as perfect at the end of a dozen years— 
which have accustomed its owner to its easy, rapid, 
and effective management—as it was in the begin- 
ning, and ‘will endure until failing sight, wasting 
