GUNS AND OTHER WEAPONS. 7 



cartridges may be charged in your leisure at home. This should 

 become the natural occupation of your spare moments. No 

 time is really gained; you simply change to advantage the time 

 consumed. Metal shells, charged with loose ammunition, and 

 susceptible of being reloaded many times, are preferable to 

 paper cartridges, even such as you load yourself, and are far 

 more eligible than any special fixed ammunition which, once 

 exhausted in a distant place, and circumstances may upset 

 the best calculations on that score, leaves the gun useless. 

 On charging the shells mark the number of the shot used on 

 the outside wad ; or better, use colored wads, say plain white 

 for dust shot, and red, blue and green for certain other sizes. 

 If going far away take as many shells as you think can possi- 

 bly be wanted and then add a few more. 



§3. Other weapons, etc. An ordinary single-barrel gun 

 will of course answer but is a sorry makeshift, for it is some- 

 times so poorly constructed as to be unsafe,* and can at best be 

 only just half as eflFective. The cane-gun should be mentioned 

 in this connection. It is a single-barrel, lacquered to look like 

 a stick, with a brass stopper at the muzzle to imitate a ferule, 

 counter-sunk hammer and trigger, and either a simple curved 

 handle, or a light gunstock-shaped piece that screws in. The 

 affair is easily .mistaken for a cane. Some have acquired con- 

 siderable dexterity in its use ; my own experience with it is > 

 very limited and unsatisfactory ; the handle always hit me in 

 the face, and I generally missed my bird. It has only two 

 recommendations!* If you approve of shooting on Sunday 

 and yet scruple to shock popular prejudice, you can slip out ' 

 of town unsuspected. If you are shooting where the law 

 forbids destruction of small birds — a wise and good law that 

 you may sometimes be inclined to defy — artfully carSless 

 handling of the deceitful implement may prevent arrest and 

 fine. A blow-gun is sometimes used.. It is a long slender tube 

 of wood, metal or glass, through which clay-balls, tiny arrows, 



*Thi8 remark does not apply to any of the fine single-barrelled breech-loaders 

 now made. * 



