MANAGEMENT OF THE PUNT-GUN. 135 



in comdemning double-barrelled punt-guns as dangerous, inconvenient, 

 unnecessarily cumbersome, and totally unfit for the ordinary purposes 

 of punting. These assertions I am ready to back by challenging 

 any one using a double-barrelled punt-gun of the magnitude and 

 description of that referred to in Colonel's Hawker's book for a 

 week, or a season, of ordinary wild-fowl shooting to kill as many 

 with a single-barrelled stanchion g*un within the same period. One 

 barrel of Col. Hawker's gun was fitted with flint-and-lock, and the 

 other with percussion " a pair of barrels put together so as to fire two 

 circles, each one partly eclipsed with the other." Either barrel might 

 be fired separately ; but the object seems to have been to fire two 

 pounds of shot with as little recoil and as great effect as might be. 

 The Colonel adds : 



" At the moment that one part of the birds are being killed by the 

 detonator, the others are just conveniently opening their wings for 

 the flint barrel, though they have not time to rise ; because I have 

 here eased the recoil, and got the barrels together so as to do the 

 business point blank." 



Now, I very much question the authority of the Colonel as to 

 whether the second barrel ever did anything beyond killing the slain, 

 or firing wide of the mark ; though both triggers might be pulled 

 apparently simultaneously. The instant the first barrel is fired the 

 uninjured birds spring from the water, and the second charge passes 

 beneath them ; but which, from the cloud of smoke left by the 

 discharge for a few seconds between the birds and the punt, it is 

 impossible for the punter to see ; and he accordingly fires the second 

 barrel without the possibility of taking aim, or knowing whether they 

 have risen or not : and this is assuming that the gun still lies in point 

 blank direction of the birds at the second discharge, which, in nine 

 cases out of ten, would not be the case; as the jar occasioned by the 

 discharge of the first barrel of so large a gun almost invariably alters 

 its position for the second ; and it is clear that the slightest deviation 

 of the position of the punt-gun, necessarily alters the range of 

 the shot. 



It can, therefore, be through a miracle only that the second barrel 

 of a large punt-gun adds to the number of birds slaughtered by the 

 first, though fired with all possible dispatch after the other. 



Could the two barrels be discharged at one and the same instant, 

 as if both by one trigger, then the double discharge might tell with 

 double effect ; but every one knows the imprudence, if not the 



