108 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
laid away for half a dozen years, they will be found, when 
cleaned, in perfect condition. To clean them, plunge the 
barrels, as before, into hot water, and stand them near the 
fire until the grease within, being completely liquefied, can 
be turned out; the barrels should be then washed, dried, 
and cleaned as usual after a day’s shooting, the pine pegs 
removed from the nipples, and they will be ready for any 
service. 
Loon-skin oil, mentioned above, is thus made. Cut 
away with a sharp knife all the fat, nearly half an inch in 
thickness, which comes away, adhering to the inside of the 
skin, when the bird is flayed; try it out in an earthen pot 
or crucible, purify by inserting old nails or shot for ten 
days, draw off the oil, and bottle. 
It is the sovereignest thing in the world to prevent rust, 
especially the rust arising from sea-air; I learned the use 
of it from observing that the gunners at Barnegat, Ege 
Harbor, &c., constantly, when out on the bays, keep a piece 
of loon-skin in the pocket of their pea-jackets, and therewith 
wipe, from time to time, with the fleshy or fatty side, the 
metallic parts of their fowling-pieces. Perceiving the 
effect of this, I improved on the plan, by trying out and 
bottling the oil, and from long trial can pronounce it the 
best detergent and preventive of rust. 
A few words on the rifle, that most American of all 
fire-arms, as adapted to sporting purposes, and to field use 
as opposed to target practice, and I pass on to more inter- 
esting, if not more indispensable portions of my subject. 
The ordinary old-fashioned rifle of the American back- 
woodsman, which did its work of extermination on the 
