512 



Practical Game Preserving. 



poor affairs, but there are one or two good ones of con- 

 siderable use. Of course, they can be made roughly and 

 cheaply enough, but we do not like rough things, and alarm- 

 guns depending upon their "going off" for their utility 

 are not of much use if their roughness prevent them. The 

 simplest form of alarm is a piece of thick gas-pipe, with a 

 choke-piece screwed on at one end, the piece having a gun 

 nipple screwed into its centre. This pipe is loaded and the 

 nipple capped, the outside being smeared round with suet 



FIG. 43. WIGG'S ALARM GUN. 



and beeswax. When the bolt is withdrawn the striker falls 

 and the charge is exploded. A better idea of the form 

 such an alarm may take is shown at Fig. 42. Attached 

 to the trigger (a) is a line, which is stretched through the 

 plantation. On being pushed against by people moving in 

 the wood (a) is removed, the striker (b) falls, and the charge 

 in the barrel (c) is exploded, thus giving the alarm. There 

 are also more complicated arrangements than this, by which 

 several successive shots are fired, but we do not find them 



