THE GUN AND ITS VARIOUS PARTS. 407 



tioD, "\vc cannot expect our sporting friends to be competent to 

 provide themselves with such fowling-pieces as will come up to 

 our ideal of beauty, or answer the good purposes that we design 

 to exhibit in a superior gun. Many of our readers will smile 

 in anticipation of a long and tedious dissertation upon a subject 

 that they can take but little interest in beyond the mere out- 

 ward examination of an instrument, the skilful making and 

 putting together of which has occupied the minds of many of 

 the most intelligent and ingenious spirits of the old world as 

 well as the new. Many of our Sportsmen are content to go to 

 the field with a second or third rate gun, feeling well satisfied 

 of its goodness, provided it kills occasionally at long distances 

 and does not burst when overcharged ; the nipples, to be sure, 

 will sometimes fly out, and the locks now and then get out of 

 order, but these trifling inconveniences can soon be rectified by 

 application to the gunsmith, village blacksmith, or perhaps by 

 the Shooter's own ready genius. Notwithstanding these occa- 

 sional mishaps, the gun is pronounced a " good one," and no 

 thought is had of anything superior, although many a fine day's 

 sport has been interrupted by these "little annoyances" that 

 cannot be helped. The luxury of a superior gun, if we may so 

 speak, is never dreamed of by these people, and they cannot 

 conceive the possibility of shooting for years with the same 

 fowling-piece without once seeing it the least out of order. A 

 weapon so dangerous as a gun, even in the hands of the most 

 careful, should certainly be of excellent quality, and all its parts 

 made of such materials as to insure its safety at all times, under 

 judicious management, and leave no room for those melancholy 

 accidents that so often occur from the bursting and going off 

 of inferior guns when least expected, owing to the impurity of 

 its metal, the structure of its locks, or other portions of its 

 machinery. 



We do not intend to occupy, or rather hore^ the reader with 

 a long scientific or rather mechanical dissertation upon gun- 

 making, but merely wish to direct his attention to the subject 

 in such a way that he will gain in a few pages all the practical 

 information in reference to a gun that will be necessary to 

 make him familiar with its history, manufacture, and con- 

 struction. ' 



