PUNT-GUNS. 393 



that would escape ere recharging, before this was a 

 mere finger-and-thumb motion in its simplicity, as it 

 is now. In the matter of punt-guns, your game 

 does not spring up quick and uncertain at odd 

 moments, nor need you be prepared for such chances 

 by facility of loading. If you start loaded and get a 

 shot, though there be no cripples (which there should 

 with few exceptions be, unless you fired at random), 

 you may rest assured it will be some time ere you 

 see or may expect another chance. Punting, if done 

 aright, is careful work, and must be carried out with 

 the utmost caution and looking to possibilities. It is 

 not, as in ordinary game-shooting, a happy-go-lucky 

 hit or miss, and take your chance as best you may. 



If a fowler prefers a breech-loader, says a muzzle- 

 loader takes two minutes too long to load, that 

 rubbing the barrel out a couple of times is like 

 sweeping a kitchen-chimney, and gives a few other 

 fine-gentleman and absurd reasons, then by all 

 means let him take to the former ; but don't let him 

 leave his old-fashioned gun behind when going on a 

 cruise, to be regretted afterwards when cartridges run 

 short, or accidents happen, when the nearest artificer 

 for a day's journey is the village blacksmith. 



A few years since there was not a breech-loading 

 punt-gun in existence that could shoot in the same 

 week with a muzzle-loader, though even at that time 

 they were puffed up as something wonderful, merely 

 because they loaded quickly and at the breech, and 

 were in consequence said to be far superior to 

 aught old-fashioned. Their shooting powers were 

 quite a secondary consideration and not thought 

 of; all that was paid attention to was appear- 



