lo OUR BIG GAME 



The earlier hunters in America, of the Boone and 

 Crockett period, and even later, used a long, brass- 

 mounted small-bore rifle and did excellent work with 

 it. It answered very well for the small deer, the 

 turkeys and even for the common black bear, which 

 was never formidable, and was often shot from the 

 trees. These rifles were, of course, all muzzle-loaders, 

 and there was often no time to reload for a wounded 

 bear; but the bears usually tried to escape even 

 when wounded, and when they were cornered or 

 brave enough to attack the hunter, they were usually 

 despatched with the knife. For the elk, the moose, the 

 bison, and especially for the ferocious grizzly bear, 

 the pea-rifle was entirely too light, and the Western 

 hunters soon demanded a heavier weapon. Some shot 

 a ball weighing nearly if not quite an ounce. The 

 modern repeating-rifles, of a few years ago, were for 

 the most part forty-five or fifty calibre, and these 

 were regarded as none too large for the formidable 

 Western bear. There has been much discussion re- 

 cently as to the comparative merits of large and small 

 calibre rifles, and many sportsmen are now inclined to 

 use the thirty calibre. One of the most accomplished 

 sportsmen in America, who has written entertainingly 

 on all branches of shooting, says " the best all-around 

 rifle is now the thirty-calibre nitro, not because it will 

 do all that is claimed for it, but because it makes so 

 much flatter a line to everything within reasonable 

 distance than any black-powder gun can do. The ball 

 goes too much to pieces on some shots, and all that 

 I have tried throw ten per cent, of the balls wild, five 

 slightly wild and five badly so. But the swiftness of 



