10 IMPLEMENTS FOR COLLECTING, AND THEIR USE. 
gency, always keep a wad-cutter to fit your gun. You can 
make serviceable wads of pasteboard, but they are far inferior 
to felt. Cut them on the flat sawn end of a stick of fire- 
wood; the side of a plank does not do very well. Use a 
wooden mallet, instead of a hammer or hatchet, and so saye 
your cutter. Soft paper is next best after wads; I have never 
used rags, cotton or tow, fearing these tinder-like substances 
might leave a spark in the barrels. Crumbled leaves or grass 
will answer at a pinch. I have occasionally, in a desperate 
hurry, loaded and killed without any wadding. 
§5. OTHER EQUIPMENTS.* a. For the gun. <A gun-case will 
come cheap in the end, especially if you travel much. The 
usual box, divided into compartments, and well lined, is the 
best, though the full length leather or india-rubber cloth case 
answers very well. The box should contain a small kit of 
tools, such as mainspring-vise, nipple-wrench, screw-driver, 
etc. A stout hard-wood cleaning rod, with wormer, will be 
required. It is always safe to have parts of the gun lock, 
especially mainspring, in duplicate. For muzzle-loaders extra 
nipples and extra ramrod heads and tips often come into use. 
For breech-loaders the apparatus for charging the shells is so 
useful as to be practically indispensable. b. For ammunition. 
Metal shells or paper cartridges may be carried loose in the 
large lower coat pocket, or in a leathern satchel. There is 
said to be a chance of explosion by some unlucky blow, where 
they are so carried, but I never knew of an instance. Another 
way is to fix them separately in a row in snug loops of soft 
leather sewn continuously along a stout waist-belt; or in sey- 
eral such horizontal rows on a square piece of thick leather, to 
be slung by a strap over the shoulder. The appliancesefor loose 
ammunition are almost endlessly varied, so every one may con- 

* Parker Brothers, West Meriden, Conn., publish a pamphlet which I should 
advise you to get. I suppose it would be mailed on application. It is of course 
entirely in the business interest of the Parker gun, but gives many useful hints of 
general practical applicability, respecting the appliances for guns and ammu- 
nition. There is a good deal of apparatus that I pass over as not being indispen- 
sable, but which you might find convenient. 



