MUZZLE-LOADERS AND BREECH-LOADERS. 65 



There are now some twenty or thirty of these 

 guns in use among our sportsmen, and they have 

 generally given satisfaction. Of course it requires a 

 short time to accustom oneself to a new implement ; 

 arid a cheap piece, which it is natural to purchase 

 on an experiment, is a poor affair, and especially so 

 with a breech-loader ; but the invention is steadily 

 winning friends. In England, where the nature of 

 the game is not so well calculated for its use as here, 

 the highest authority on sporting gunnery, the edi- 

 tor of the Field, who writes under the name of 

 Stonehenge, speaking of the two guns, says : " In- 

 deed, so near is the performance of the two, that we 

 cannot think for a moment that for general purposes 

 there can be a doubt of the superiority of the breech- 

 loader, when quickness of loading, safety, and clean- 

 liness are taken into consideration." 



