FOREST SPORTS. 
229 
breeches and leggins, and an ordinary winter shooting-jacket 
and waistcoat, over which may be indued an Indian hunting 
shirt of blanketing, and if this latter be pure white, from its 
similarity to the hue of the snow, it will, perhaps, be less con¬ 
spicuous to the timid game than any other color. There is, 
however, a coarse woollen stuff of a kind of dead leaf tint, 
manufactured by the habitans in Lower Canada, which is very 
well suited for the purpose. A fur cap will be found the most 
commodious head-piece. 
The hunting-shirt should be confined at the waist by a leather 
belt, in one side of which an old woodman will stick his long, 
keen, stout-backed wood-knife, the blade of which should be 
about a foot long, by an inch and a half in breadth, while his 
little axe, or tomahawk, will occupy the other side, with its sharp 
head secured in a sort of leathern pocket, and the handle depen¬ 
dent on the thigh. It is a very good plan to have this handle 
made to taper gradually from the head, and to finish it with a 
sharp steel pike, which will admit of its being used as a stabbing 
weapon. 
To the front of the belt it is usual to attach a large pouch of 
otter or some other handsome fur, similar to the sporran of a 
Scottish highlander, in which to carry the bullets, patches, clean¬ 
ing apparatus, &c., to which may be added on occasion, a flint 
and steel, pipe and tobacco, which will be found desiderata on 
such a march as I am describing. 
The powder is most conveniently carried in an ox horn, slung 
over the left shoulder so as to hang under the right arm, finished 
with a simple stopper. For in order to make accurate shoot¬ 
ing, a rifle must be loaded with so nicely measured a charge of 
powder, that a spring-topped flask, of however excellent fabric, 
will not cut it off with sufficient nicety. Old woodmen, there¬ 
fore, use a charger, hung by a thong or sinew from the collar 
of the hunting-shirt, by which the charge can be measured to a 
fraction ; and this is by far the better way. 
If carried in the manner I have described, none of these im¬ 
plements will be found burthensome or inconvenient; and, as 
