559 FOREST, FIELD, AND PRAIRIE. 



been tested with 203 grains of powder and 2, 100 grains of lead with 

 out injury. There is no more complication to this gun than in most 

 of the single breech-loaders, and consequently no more risks of its 

 getting out of order. An old expert, who has knocked about the 

 mountains and prairies all his life, and who ought to know, 

 says : 



In hunting on the plains and in the Rocky Mountain country — 

 and the best big game hunting for the rifle, is west of the Missouri, 

 and not east of the AUeghanies — I have found that one hundred 

 yards was a short range compared to most of the distances at 

 which game is killed. I have hunted deer from the Wind River 

 Mountains in northwestern Wyoming Territory to the extreme 

 southwestern part of New Mexico, and my experience has been, that 

 most of the deer I have shot myself, or seen shot by others, were 

 killed over one hundred yards, and many over two hundred yards 

 (measured, for always when I can, I pace off the distance). I re- 

 fer more particularly to black-tail deer, as the white-tail deer keep 

 more in the timber, or in the thickets along the stream bottoms, 

 and are therefore shot generally at shorter distances. I mean the 

 black-tail of the hunters in the Rocky Mountain country (Cervis 

 Macravis) called by naturaUsts the mule deer, and not Cervis 

 Columbiamis, the black-tail of the naturalists, which is found 

 farther west than the Rocky Mountains. (By the way, what im- 

 pertinence and presumption on the part of eastern naturalists to 

 try and dictate to us about the names of these deer, and to call the 

 black-tail the mule deer, and the Columbia River deer the only 

 true black-taU.) One of my rifles, which I used for hunting in 

 the Far West, a Springfield, fifty calibre resighted, restocked, etc., 

 by a western gunsmith, is so sighted that its point blank range is 

 over one hundred and fifty yards, as most of the game at which I 

 used it, especially antelope, were shot from one hundred and fifty 

 to three hundred yards. The farthest I ever kiUed an elk dead, 

 was four hundred yards (which I paced). I have seen many 

 hunters on the plains have their rifles so sighted as to have a point 

 blank o. nearly two hundred yards, thus making a very good rifle 

 for antelope or elk. Elevating sights are an abomination and a * 

 delusion, oil a hunting rifle. 



Guns to carry Ball. — In the timber, whert, game is shot a< 



* The same writer, Col. A. D. Picket, as well as T. S. Van Dyke, of 

 California, both favor the Express rifle for heavy work at lonE range. 

 The latest Remington is probably as near perfection as a rifled iron can be. 



