49 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
strength or discipline, if opposed to troops armed with 
percussion and breech-loading minie-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, cleanly, and in 
fine dashing style; and I have never, certainly, seen 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 bad 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 
