6 INTRODUCTION 



willing to take my rifle from the gunmaker, 

 and my cartridges from the ammunition 

 manufacturer, and to go out after game 

 without even having tried either at a target. 

 These pages may reach the hands of those 

 who are now going through this stage, 

 and if what I have written only induces 

 one of them to think of what he is doing, 

 and alter his ways, it will not have been 

 written in vain. I think, however, that 

 the number of sportsmen who neither 

 trouble as to how their cartridoes are 

 loaded (so long as they do not miss fire), 

 nor as to whether their rifles are at all 

 calculated to give the results they desire 

 to obtain, is a daily decreasing one ; and, 

 if I am rioht in so thinkino-, there is the 

 less need to apologise for the dryness of 

 the articles referred to, As to the fair 



