Introduction. 



nature, and those for the most part devoted to the art of 

 war fortification and military tactics ; all such works are 

 enumerated in the military bibliographies, which may be 

 readily consulted. Many sporting works, in which some- 

 thing is said of firearms and shooting, have also had to be 

 passed by, and only a bare hundred out of the many recent 

 works devoted to sport abroad have been selected. Foreign 

 sporting works, of little technical interest, have also been 

 omitted; the reader needing them may advantageously 

 consult the more general bibliography of Souhait. Russian 

 sporting books have been excluded it must not, however, 

 be inferred that Russia has no literature of this description, 

 only that the typographical difficulties were considerable, 

 and the interest at present taken in Russian books of the 

 class infinitesimal. The bibliographical notices in " Priroda 

 y Ohhota " and in the service periodicals will probably be 

 sufficient for the purposes of the few readers likely to require 

 to consult Russian sporting books. 



The appendices contain a short bibliography of works 

 relating to explosives, such works having been selected as 

 likely to prove of the greatest service to the student of the 

 history of guns and shooting ; lists of the most noteworthy 

 technical papers read before learned societies ; and an index 

 to technical articles in various periodicals. The student 

 of history will find short references to works dealing with 

 the archaeology of firearms, a list of catalogues of various 

 collections of arms, and also the titles of various biblio- 

 graphies, which may be of use in supplementing the one 

 now presented. 



The introduction of firearms into Europe preceded the 

 invention of printing by nearly two centuries; but the 

 earliest manuscripts which treated of guns were subsequently 

 printed, or, like those of Cataneo, were lost. As is well 

 known, the first mention of the use of firearms in England, 



