358 GUN, RIFLE, AND HOUND. 



For European sport generally, and perhaps I should 

 say I speak only of sport in wild and unpreserved 

 countries, no great bags of winged game need be 

 expected. Therefore I maintain that the sportsman 

 should content himself with one shot barrel in order to 

 get other advantages. Now, what are the requirements 

 such a single weapon must fulfil ? In the first place 

 the sportsman must have a rifle that will knock over a 

 deer at one hundred yards at least, its trajectory being 

 flat. Secondly, he must have a gun suitable to all 

 winged and ground game ; and lastly, he should have a 

 second rifled barrel (less attention being paid in its 

 construction to flat trajectory), useful in a fight with 

 bear or boar, or to stop a wounded animal. If these 

 advantages can be obtained in one double-barrelled 

 weapon, they more than counterbalance the drawback 

 of having a single shot-barrel. This, then, was the 

 problem I set myself to solve, with the result that my 

 specimen weapon is now ready, and will I trust be 

 thoroughly tested in South- Eastern Europe this year. 



It will be seen from the above that it combines 

 at least three weapons in two barrels. Therefore 

 it is obvious that one barrel must 



" Contrive somehow a double debt to pay." 



That " somehow " and the bore are the only mystery 

 in the matter. I may add that the weapon is so 

 regulated that no accident can possibly happen if 

 a cartridge, in the excitement of the moment, is thrust 

 into the wrong barrel. This is not the case with the so- 

 called u Cape " guns, which have one barrel an Express 



