GUNS. 



BY ARTHTTR "SV. DU BRAY ("GAUCHO"). 



WILL endeavor, to the best of my ability, to 

 treat on the subject of guns in as brief and 

 concise a manner as possible brief, because 

 my tether is limited as to space; concise, 

 because I will deal with nothing further 

 than the practical part, leaving all theoret- 

 ical points to other pens and wiser heads. 



The shot-gun of to-day is the breech- 

 loader, fast tending to the hammerless, and gradually 

 leaning toward the ejector; therefore, descriptions of 

 antiquated fire-arms, be they ever so elaborate, can be 

 of little practical value nowadays, excepting insomuch ' 

 that the younger sportsman will do well to read of these 

 old-fashioned guns and rifles, and then compare them with 

 what he can obtain now, and thereafter thank his stars 

 that he was not contemporaneous with flint-locks, which 

 went off with a whiz-bang that rendered wing-shooting 

 decidedly uncertain to any but a first-class marks- 

 man. 



I will divide my subject into three parts, viz. : Field- 

 guns, Trap-guns, and Duck-guns, and endeavor to 

 describe each from a thoroughly practical standpoint, 

 and from the education gained by twenty-five years of 

 experience over thousands of miles of ground some in 

 Europe, but more particularly over the vast area con- 

 tained between the British frontier of North America 

 and that of Patagonia in the far South while my range 



(421) 



