xx INTRODUCTION 



pace with the requirements of their customers they 

 themselves must acquire a knowledge of the field as 

 well as of their craft. As a consequence, several of 

 the most skilled and clever of present-day gunmakers 

 are thoroughly efficient sportsmen, trained by frequent 

 practice in all the arts of shooting in the field. This, 

 certainly, is as it should be, for a gunmaker familiar 

 with all phases and conditions of shooting is likely to 

 prove to the sportsman a far more valuable ally than 

 will the gunmaker who spends most of his wakeful hours 

 at the bench or in the sale department. This, perhaps, 

 might not apply so forcibly were it merely a question 

 of gunmaking ; one or two other matters beside the 

 mere making of guns for instance, the due fitting of 

 the customer with arms that he can handle, and that are 

 well adapted for the work he finds for them to do, as, 

 also, the question of suitability of loads, and cartridge- 

 loading are dominant factors in insuring success under 

 the conditions of sport ruling in this twentieth century. 

 And, surely, the gunmaker who has practical field- 

 knowledge respecting the requirements of the sportsman 

 is likely to prove an apt counsellor. 



My acknowledgments are due to the Editors of 

 The Field, Country Life, Country Sport, and The Shoot- 

 ing Times for kindly granting me permission to make 

 extracts, here and there, from my contributions to their 

 respective journals for the purposes of the present work. 



HENRY SHARP. 



London, 

 August 1903. 



