FOREST SPORTS. 229 



breeches and leggins, and an ordinary winter shooting-jacket 

 and waistcoat, over which may be indued an Indian hunting- 

 shirt of blanketing, and if this latter be pure white, from its 

 similarity to the hue of the snow, it will, perhaps, be less con- 

 spicuous to the timid game than any other color. There is, 

 however, a coarse woollen stuff of a kind of dead leaf tint, 

 manufactured by the habitans in Lower Canada, which is very 

 well suited for the purpose. A fur cap will be found the most 

 commodious head-piece. 



The hunting-shirt should be confined at the waist by a leather 

 belt, in one side of which an old woodman will stick his long, 

 keen, stout-backed wood-knife, the blade of which should be 

 about a foot long, by an inch and a half in breadth, while his 

 little axe, or tomahawk, will occupy the other side, with its sharp 

 head secured in a sort of leathern pocket, and the handle depen- 

 dent on the thigh. It is a very good plan to have this handle 

 made to taper gradually from the head, and to finish it with a 

 sharp steel pike, which will admit of its being used as a stabbing 

 weapon. 



To the front of the belt it is usual to attach a large pouch of 

 otter or some other handsome fur, similar to the sporran of a 

 Scottish highlander, in which to carry the bullets, patches, clean- 

 ing apparatus, &c., to which may be added on occasion, a flint 

 and steel, pipe and tobacco, which will be found desiderata on 

 such a march as I am describing. 



The powder is most conveniently carried in an ox horn, slung 

 over the left shoulder so as to hang under the right arm, finished 

 with a simple stopper. For in order to make accurate shoot- 

 ing, a rifle must be loaded with so nicely measured a charge of 

 powder, that a spring-topped flask, of however excellent fabric, 

 will not cut it off with suffi 'ient nicety. Old woodmen, there- 

 fire, use a charger, hung by a thong or sinew from the collar 

 of the hunting-shirt, by which the charge can be measured to a 

 fraction ; and this is by far the better way. 



If carried in the manner I have described, none of these im- 

 plements will be found burthensome or inconvenient ; and, as 



