GUNS AND OTHER WEAPONS. ii 
cartridges may be charged in your leisure at home. This should 
become the natural occupation of your spare moments. No 
time is really gained; yousimply 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. OrHeR 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 effective. 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 careless 
handling of the deceitful implement may prevent arrest and 
fine. <A blow-gun is sometimes used. It isa long slender tube 
of wood, metal or glass, through which clay-balls, tiny arrows, 

*This remark does not apply to any of the fine single-barrelled breech-loaders 
now made. 
