SCALING-FORK AND CLIMBING-SPUR. 



133 



soldier hauled himself to the top of the wall. In some of these 

 instruments the shafts were armed with projecting pegs, set at 

 regular intervals, so that they acted as the steps of a ladder, 

 and rendered the ascent comparatively easy. 



Many of the long-handled partisans, such as the well-known 

 Jedwood axe, were furnished with a hook upon the back of the 

 blade, so that the weapon served the purpose of a scaling-fork 

 as well as a battle-axe. 



The Scaling-fork (German Sturmgabel), which is shown on 

 the right hand of the illustration, was in use somewhere about 

 A.D. 1500. That which is shown next to it is about a hundred 

 years later. 



Demmin, from whose work these figures are taken, mentions 

 that at the siege of Mons, in 1691, the grenadiers of the elder 



WALRUS TUSKS. LARVA OF TIGER-BEETLE. CLIMBING-SPUR. SCALI\G-FORKS. 



HOOKS OP SEBPULA. 



Dauphin's regiment stormed the walls under the command of 

 Yauban, and, by means of the Scaling-fork, carried the breast- 

 work, which they assaulted. As a mark of honour to these 

 gallant men, Louis XIV. ordered that the sergeants of the 

 regiment should carry scaling-forks instead of halberds, which 

 had been the peculiar weapon of the sergeant until compara- 

 tively late days, just as the spontoon, or half-pike, was the 

 weapon of the infantry officer from A.D. 1700 to A.D. 1800, or 

 thereabouts. 



The English student will remember that in the writings of 

 Sterne, Fielding, and Smollett the half-pike is frequently 



