12 THE GUN: AFIELD AND AFLOAT 



to join a party for some partridge-driving. Being keen 

 to try the gun I decided to take it with me that day. 

 This, all things considered, was scarcely fair to the gun, 

 for in the absence of a little private rehearsal before 

 essaying to shoot with a weapon entirely strange to me, 

 it was well within the range of possibilities that some 

 avoidable hitch might occur. At the outset I found 

 that the trigger of this particular gun was designed with 

 the forward slope or curve of the first trigger of a dual- 

 triggered gun. Owing to this I at first experienced 

 some little delay in getting off my second barrel, the 

 forefinger, used to handling two triggers, instinctively 

 dropping backward into the space left between this form 

 of trigger and the trigger guard. Of course this per- 

 sonal error could in no way effect my opinion as to the 

 working of the gun, which pleased me greatly, the 

 mechanism answering each pull of the trigger with 

 smoothness and certainty. The form of the trigger in 

 these single-triggered guns is a matter of taste as well 

 as of convenience, and Mr. Holland has informed me 

 that either form of trigger seen on two-triggered guns 

 can be applied to his single-triggered guns. I believe 

 that the backward slope of an ordinary second trigger 

 will be found to suit the average gunner best. I pur- 

 posely fired a variety of cartridges out of this Holland 

 single-trigger in order to make the test as thorough as 

 possible, and to see if by any chance a breakdown 

 might be effected. I found, however, that Eley's Pega- 

 moid and ordinary paper cases, Joyce's paper cases, and 

 Kynoch's paper and brass-covered paper shells with 

 full charges of Schultze, Amberite, E. C, Cannonite- 

 bulk and condensed, also Curtis and Harvey's No. 3 

 diamond grain black powder, were each and all fired and 



