480 
FOREST AND S T R E A M 
September, 1919 
that they have turned out good guns. 
Why also is my suggestion of “casting 
off” the stock to rectify the shooting of 
a right barrel which shoots off centre, 
“too grotesque to merit serious consid- 
eration?” Surely one who has tried out 
these points can be allowed to give the 
results of his experiments for the benefit 
of fellow sportsmen, without being 
jumped all over by some one who has 
never even heard of such things. 
As to the “Under and Over” system, 
I have known and handled many of these 
guns in the past, ever since they origin- 
ated, I believe in Belgium, where I saw 
them many years ago, long before I ever 
saw one in England; but I have never 
fired a shot from one. 
With the last paragraph in “Gaucho’s” 
letter, I entirely agree, viz., that if my 
idea is to recommend the “Under and 
Over” system, a better and more straight- 
forward method of doing so could easily 
be found. 
It is preferable to try the cooling effect 
of ice on one’s head before coming out 
with the statement that such cooling ef- 
fect is nil! 
L. Mitchell-Henry, New York. 
A BABY PORCUPINE 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
O NE of the few baby porcupines ever 
born in captivity made its appear- 
ance recently at the California State 
Game Farm. 
As a rule porcupines are not consid- 
ered if the question of pets is under 
discussion, but when a pair of the ro- 
dents with erectile spines was brought to 
the Farm, Ruth, the daughter of the 
Superintendent, determined to tame them 
as she had tamed everything else on the 
place from Billy the buck that as pro- 
tector of the herd of farm deer, per- 
mits no intrusion on the privacy of his 
charges, to Pete the quail who is so 
well behaved as to be allowed once in 
a while a place at the family table where 
he will hop from plate to plate, daintily 
picking up a bit here and a crumb there, 
but always conducting himself as a per- 
fect gentleman should. 
Porcupines are not particularly lov- 
able animals. They are sulky, sneak- 
ing and inquisitive bunches of quills and 
Ruth had much difficulty in making these 
do anything, but try to stick her full 
of their little barbed spears. Her first 
step was to induce them to nibble at a 
piece of apple on the end of a stick. 
Then they learned to know her, to watch 
for her coming and finally to stand erect 
on their hind legs and beg for some- 
thing to eat as will a well-trained dog. 
One day the baby came, a little rat 
of a fellow, but with the same nrotec- 
tion of a perfect cheval-de-frise of quills 
as had his parents. Now comes the 
strange part of it. All animals, wild 
ones in particular take jealous care of 
their young. These porcupines, however, 
acted as if proud of their baby and anxi- 
ous that Ruth should show it attention. 
The little fellow seemed to know the girl 
was a friend of the porcupine family, 
took readily to her and was soon climb- 
ing up in her lap, eating apples from 
her hand, yes, even from her mouth, all 
the time using great care that none of 
his sharp spines so much as scratched 
her flesh. Let anyone else come near 
the cage and things were different. Baby 
would run into his barrel and hide while 
the old ones with their war paint on 
brandished their tails like claymores in 
the hands of Scottish chieftains of old 
and rushed to the defense of their off- 
spring. All of which illustrates the wis- 
dom of the wild and shows how readily 
they are able to distinguish between those 
whose hearts are kind and others who 
perhaps are on mischief bent. 
Edward T. Martin, California. 
THE LENGTH OF GUN BARRELS 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream : 
vV/E have just read with interest a 
VV copy of your June number. What 
particularly interested us was the article 
on Short Barrelled Guns by W. A. B. 
on page 292, because for years past we 
have advocated the use of guns with 
28-inch barrels, maintaining all along 
that this length is sufficient for use with 
nitro powders. As a matter of fact we 
have sold quite a number of highest qual- 
A baby porcupine at the California State 
Game Farm 
ity guns to some of your sportsmen, fit- 
ted with 26-inch barrels. 
In 1912 there was a discussion in the 
Field regarding the length of barrels and 
a Mr. Snell raised the question in re- 
gard to the velocity of 28-inch versus 
30-inch. We append copy of a letter to 
the Editor of that paper which settled 
the question: 
“On the question of length of gun-bar- 
rels, it may be of interest to your cor- 
respondents to know that quite 85 per 
cent of the guns we build are with bar- 
rels of 28 inches in length, and, as evi- 
dence that they are favored, in many 
instances where one gun was originally 
supplied, orders have been subsequently 
placed for a second to match. We also 
frequently build for Continental sports- 
men, guns with 27-inch barrels, and oc- 
casionally as short as 26 inches. In no 
instance have we received a complaint 
of their non-effectiveness. We observe 
Mr. Snell states, ‘I am told that the 
short barrels do not give quite the same 
velocity as the 30-inch.’ 
“This question was raised by one of 
our customers in December, 1908, and 
at his desire we sent two guns to Messrs. 
Eley Bros, with the request that they 
would test them for velocity. The fol- 
lowing results were obtained : 
Gun 
With 
30-inch Barrels 
Riglit Barrel 
Left 
Barrel 
1 
1006 
6 
1015 
2 
1011 
7 
1058 
3 
1000 
8 
1048 
4 
1024 
9 
1062 
5 
1037 
10 
1024 
Average, 
1016 
Average, 
1041 
Gun 
With 
28-inch Barrels 
Right Barrel 
Left 
Barrel 
11 
1024 
16 
1022 
12 
1012 
17 
1000 
13 
972 
18 
1025 
14 
1000 
19 
1047 
15 
1035 
20 
1058 
Average, 
1009 
Average, 
1030 
“It will 
be noticed that the 
velocity 
with both 
pairs 
of barrels is practically 
identical.” 
Joseph Lang & Son, Ltd., England. 
To the Editor of Forest and Stream: 
O UR friend, W. A. B., claims that 
barrels, 26 and 28 inches long shoot 
as hard and close as barrels 30 and 32 
inches long. Not so, and if you have 
ouick or smokeless powder it takes a 
30- inch barrel for the powder to do 
its best. 
I’m not in favor of 32-inch barrels, 
but they are still better than 30-inch 
ones, at least on ducks. 
We have a few sportsmen here who 
claim everything for the 20-gauge, 25- 
inch barrel. Now they are a sore look- 
ing crowd in the marshes. At times 
they wish they had air rifles for they 
would be just as good. For the quick 
swing that W. A. B. gets on the shorter 
barrel does not make up for what he 
looses in penetration and pattern. But 
there are hundreds and thousands of 
gunners who have gun stocks an inch 
or more too long for them. 
I shot many years before I got wise 
to it. I am an average man, but I have 
a thirteen-inch stock, recoil pad included, 
and I would not shoot any fourteen- 
inch stock double-barrelled or pump gun 
we have. 
We have two 28-inch barrelled guns in 
our club but, if the owners make any 
change in guns they will be to the 32- 
inch barrelled ones. 
I don’t doubt a bit that the manufac- 
turers claim that the shorter barrel is 
as good as the longer, but I do doubt 
th^t they can prove it. 
I will hope to hear from some more 
of the boys. 
Chas. F. Schafer, Fairmount, N. D. 
It would seem that the last letter is 
pretty conclusively answered by the one 
just above, but we realize that there is 
a wide difference of opinion among gun 
critics and we would welcome expres- 
sions of opinion from other correspon- 
dents . — [Editors.] 
