FOREST SPORTS. 227 



Bngade is eight hundred yards. Whether this be exact or not, 

 I have seen wonderfully accurate shooting made with it, by the 

 ordinary rank and file of Infantry Regiments, at three and four 

 hundred yards, and should consider my life as not worth five 

 minutes' purchase, if set up at that distance before any one of 

 fifty or sixty men of her Majesty's 71st Highland Light Infantry. 



I am told that William Moore and William Gray, of the 

 Edgew*'e Road, London, are doing marvels with double-bar- 

 relled rifles on this principle, and were I bound for the prairies, 

 taking into consideration the rapidity and ease of loading, par- 

 ticularly on horseback, the simplicity of the engine, and the 

 saving of friction, which I presume gives the extended range, 

 I would prefer one of these beautiful weapons, to any implement 

 of destruction in the known world. 



Some able writer, on this branch of shooting, has observed, I 

 think very correctly, that the difference between American and 

 European, i. e., Scottish or Tyrolese rifle shooting, consists 

 mainly in this, — that whereas the American marksman, with a 

 ball no bigger than buck shot, or even smaller, will knock the 

 eye out of a Squirrel at sixty yards, where the European would 

 probably miss the animal altogether, — the latter, with his ounce 

 bullet, will be nearly sure of a Man, a Red-deer, or a Chamois, 

 at three or four hundred yards, when the former would not so 

 much as think of firing at it. 



This is true, — he might, however, have added, that the Euro- 

 pean being compelled to shoot altogether in the open, while 

 infinitely inferior to the American at still or sitting shots, and 

 off rest, is often as far superior at animals in rapid motion. 



All these points can be traced to the circumstances of the 

 case. Except on the prairies, where shooting is comparatively 

 recent, the nature of the country precludes the possibility of 

 long shots, since an animal can rarely be seen sixty yards off in 

 the dense forests of America. The same dense covert gives 

 facility for stealing on his game, and shooting it at rest, to the 

 American hunter, which has led to his fabricating his weapon 

 in that form which is best suited to a very sure, deliberate aim, 



