28 MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. 



disease, or accumulating years, shall compel its trans- 

 fer into younger hands. 



Unless a man has continual practice, or is an ex- 

 cellent shot, it is a serious undertaking to change 

 his gun and accustom himself to another, which, 

 although apparently identical in weight and shape, 

 will inevitably differ in some slight point that will 

 be sufficient to destroy, for a time, accuracy in aim 

 and prompt execution in cover. Some persons re- 

 quire months to acquire the effective use of a new 

 gun under difficult circumstances; and in those 

 dense thickets where so much of our shooting is 

 done, and where it is by instinct founded upon long 

 habit that the sportsman is enabled at all to kill 

 his game, and where he cannot indulge in the de- 

 liberate care that more open shooting allows 

 this deficiency will be most painfully apparent. 

 For such persons to purchase a new piece, is equi- 

 valent to throwing away the sport of an entire sum- 

 mer or fall, and when we consider that few of us 

 can expect to average more than forty summers or 

 falls, the loss of one-fortieth part of life's enjoyment 

 is no trivial deprivation. 



A very cheap gun is dangerous; but it is not ex- 

 pected that any person reading these lines will trust 

 his life with an instrument that common sense tells 

 him is manufactured to kill at both ends. A gun of 

 moderate price, that is, about one hundred dollars, 

 is as safe as the most expensive the iron is not so 

 tough, but more of it is used ; but in a short time 

 the barrels will wear away ; the locks, losing their 



