. The American sportsman : containing hints to sportsmen, notes on shooting, and the habits of game birds and wild fowl of America . emade in their fabrication. The hand-goune was next invented,—an instrument sufficiently rude in its construction when comparedwith the guns of the present day, but still, as a first effort in thisbranch of manufacture, a very serviceable weapon of attack aswell as defence. This goune was made light enough to becarried about by one person, and was fired by the application of amatch. The stocked gun was the next improvement, which also wasfired by the application
. The American sportsman : containing hints to sportsmen, notes on shooting, and the habits of game birds and wild fowl of America . emade in their fabrication. The hand-goune was next invented,—an instrument sufficiently rude in its construction when comparedwith the guns of the present day, but still, as a first effort in thisbranch of manufacture, a very serviceable weapon of attack aswell as defence. This goune was made light enough to becarried about by one person, and was fired by the application of amatch. The stocked gun was the next improvement, which also wasfired by the application of a lighted match to the priming, eitherthrough the medium of a match-lock or by the direct interpositionof the hand. The wheel-lock was the next invention, and approximatedclosely in principle if not in construction to the fiint-lock of thepresent day, a spark of fire being produced and communicated tothe priming by the friction of a notched wheel passing rapidly THE GUN. 459 over the edge of a flint-stone. The flint-lock was the next step inorder; and the percussion-lock, in its approved form, was the lastand best of ^^ THE GUN. The gun being the principal instrument by means of which thesportsman destroys his game, it seems proper that it should nowclaim our particular attention, as the proper knowledge of its man-ufacture, as well as its perfections and imperfections, should bethoroughly understood by the tyro before entering upon the sportsof the field. Without imparting this information, we cannot expectour sporting friends to be competent to provide themselves withsuch fowling-pieces as will come up to our ideal of beauty oranswer the good purposes that we design to exhibit in a superiorgun. Many of our readers will smile in anticipation of a long andtedious dissertation upon a subject in which they can take butlittle interest beyond the mere outward examination of an instru-ment the skilful making and putting together of which has occu-pied the minds of many of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjecthunting, bookyear1885
