COLLECTING. 
9 
jay or golden-winged woodpecker, at a distance 
of thirty or forty yards ; then if more penetration 
is necessary, more powder may be used with the 
same quantity of shot, but this will cause the shot 
to scatter more. A good collecting gun, one 
which will kill small birds with a very small 
amount of ammunition and little noise, has long 
been a desideratum. I have tried many kinds, 
but nothing has proved so satisfactory as a small 
repeating gun of my own invention, and which is 
manufactured by us. This gun consists of two 
brass tubes, a smaller one within a larger, with an 
air space between, thus greatly deadening the 
sound ; and both are securely fastened to a finely 
nickel-plated five-shot revolver. We make two 
sizes, a twenty-two gauge, the report of which is 
very slight, and a thirty-two gauge, which makes a 
little louder noise. The former will kill warblers 
at fifteen yards, and the latter at twenty yards, 
while birds like jays, thrushes, and robins, may be 
brought down with the thirty-two gauge at a 
distance of ten yards. This gun served me well 
in Florida last winter, and I killed at least two- 
thirds of the birds that I collected there with it. 
The light report of such a gun does not frighten 
the birds, while the fact that one nearly always 
