42 MANUAL FOE YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 



strength or discipline, if opposed to troops armed with 

 percussion and breech-loading mime-rifles, which do not 

 miss fire once in fifty shots, and carry as many hundreds 

 of yards, with accuracy, as their predecessors did paces. 



No one, again, it is presumed, who can afford the price 

 of a double gun, would be content to shoot with a single, 

 unless for ducking, where weight length and bore of such 

 magnitude are required, as to render two barrels unhandy 

 if not absolutely unmanageable ; since a fair shot will kill 

 at least a third more game in a day's shooting, beside 

 doing it in far more beautiful and artistic style with a 

 double than with a single fowling-piece. 



The prettiest thing in the art of shooting, and that 

 which is the result of the highest skill and practice, so that 

 it may be regarded as nearly the perfection of sportsman- 

 ship, is the killing double-shots accurately, cleanlv, and in 

 fine dashing style ; and I have never, certainly, «cen a per- 

 son, who had any real claim to be considered a crack-shot, 

 or a fine working sportsman, who used a single barrel, 

 after he had attained years of maturity, and had become 

 a master of his craft. 



For boys, just beginning to acquire the art of shooting, 

 single guns are, in some respects, preferable, because they 

 can be manufactured of sufficient strength, bore, and solid- 

 ity, to shoot well at fair distances, yet sufficiently light 

 to be managed by juvenile limbs ; where a double gun not 

 too heavy to be brought up to the shoulder cleverly by a 

 boy, must be either a mere plaything and pop-gun, or, if 

 of sufficient calibre and length to be at all effective, must 

 be so lightly put together and so deficient in metal, as to 



