Introduction. 



the ranks of the gunmakers. Bossi and Jacquinet in the 

 seventeenth, Page and Baker in the eighteenth, Brandeis, 

 Deane, Dcmgall, and three generations of Greeners in the 

 nineteenth centuries, have each and all had practical ex- 

 perience of the trade, and, taken collectively, may be said 

 to have contributed the greater part of the original matter 

 found in the technical literature of the firearms industry. 

 It is surprising, even to one acquainted with literary 

 plagiarism, to note the persistency with which information 

 on technical and sporting matters was annexed in the 

 " good old days," and palmed off as first-hand authority. 

 The much-extolled Marolles, whose essay of 1784 was 

 translate^ into English and has been constantly quoted, 

 drew freely upon Vita Bonf adini and Tamariz de la Escaler, 

 less from Spadoni, Juan Mateos, and Martinez del Espinar, 

 leaving the original matter to be gathered by interviewing 

 some Parisian gunmakers and listening to the gossip of 

 sporting friends. Again, what a mine of wealth to the 

 writer on field sports Colonel P. Hawker's " Instructions " 

 has proved ! 



To another class belong the authors who, at the com- 

 mencement of this century, were so infatuated with Scottish 

 sports as to create a special literature. Very poor is the 

 quality of much that was produced in the passion of the 

 time. " Unreal in fact and artificial in form " is likely to 

 be the verdict of posterity upon the productions of even the 

 best of the writers ; though to state it now would probably 

 bring angry retorts from the sportsmen still living to 

 whom the craving for northern field sports was once no 

 imaginary desire. 



Better, in the sense of being more practical, than Wilson 

 are the reminiscences of Scrope ; better, in the sense of 

 being more natural, are Colquhoun of " Moor and Loch " 

 and Lloyd of " Northern Europe " ; but worse, from the 



