THE GUN, AND HOW TO CHOOSE IT. 75 
measure of No. 1, where the interstices are as numerous 
as the pellets. So that two ounces, or rather the full of 
what is called a two ounce measure, in a shooting-pouch, 
of No. 1, shall not really weigh more than one and a half 
ounce of No. 10, by the same measure. 
This then constitutes, according to my opinion, the 
gun above described, the most available for all purposes, 
and the most useful general shooting gun for all sports- 
men who can afford but one gun for all work, that can be 
made. 
It is sufficiently short and handy to be easily recover- 
able, and to shoot with murderous effect in the closest 
and most tangled brake. It is sufficiently close-carrying 
and hard-hitting to do its work, as well as any gun is ever 
needed to do its work, on the wildest game in the open. 
It will stop a wild duck going down wind with No. 2 
shot at 45 to 50 yards, or with an Eley’s cartridge at 70; 
and with ten slugs in a wire cartridge, a stag at the same 
distance will have but a poor chance before it, for it will 
throw the ten slugs into a twenty-four inch diameter. - 
I have never myself shot in any covert with a shorter 
gun, nor did I ever feel that I was giving any odds to 
those who did. I have never shot in the open with a 
longer or heavier gun, and I have always felt, that in 
shooting a hard long day through, I was taking large odds 
from those who did. 
It must be remembered, which, for the most part it is 
not, that the great majority of birds killed are recovered 
dead, within twenty yards of the muzzle; that not one in 
fifty, in a day’s shooting, is gathered over forty, and that 
