THE GUN, AND HOW TO CHOOSE IT, 69 
tather have the Mullin—or to go at once to head-quarters 
and get a London fifty-guinea, on whose shooting you may 
wager your life, with the certainty of winning, and of the 
gun shooting as well fifty years hence, as on the day of 
purchase. As Peter Probasco said to J. Cypress, jr., in 
the fisher’s hut at Fire Islands, “ Them’s my sentiments, 
and you knows ’em !” 
I said in the opening of this subject, that the double- 
barrelled fowling-piece is the only weapon and ultimatum 
of art for the sportsman. No greater number of barrels 
than two can be combined, so as to produce a manageable 
and effective piece; nor if there could, would the crack 
shot, once in twenty times, use a third barrel at three 
different birds, much less fire thrice at one. Than a crack 
shot, no other possibly could do so—if it be considered, 
how quickly a bevy of quail, all taking wing simul- - 
taneously, get out of the range of shot, and how rarely, 
when they do spring all together, even two barrels bring 
down their two birds clean killed. 
All revolvers for sporting shot guns are out of the 
question; for more time is lost in recocking and revolving 
the chamber, than could be recovered by the quickest shot 
in time to kill even a second, much less a third or fourth 
bird; besides which, the weapons are unpardonably clumsy 
hideous, and unsportsmanlike, and fail entirely of execu- 
tion as compared with ordinary chambered’ guns. Stone- 
henge gives a cut and description of a new breech-loading 
double gun, invented by a Frenchman, and improved by 
Mr. Lang, in which the barrels are raised from their con- 
nection with the false breech, by the turning of a crank, 
