There has always been great dispute among trap-shooters as to the best trap. The New York City Club claims that a bird released from a ground-trap, selecting his own time to rise, and mode and direction of flight, is harder to kill than one tossed heels over head from a plunge or spring-trap. But our Western brethren, who are naturally more rapid, and who have less difficulty in obtaining pigeons, are so annoyed with the waste of time occasioned by a dilatory pigeon, that they universally prefer the plunge-trap. Probably the mesne between these two opinions is correct, or more properly a combination of them both; a single bird is undoubtedly harder to kill at a ground-trap, whereas the plunge-trap will free the two birds in double-shooting, to go off at the same moment. So that for these reasons, and to insure skill at both, they should be appropriated to these offices respectively. The best Western shot, if not the best gentleman shot in the world, who has killed his eighty-four out of ninety double birds, was terribly baulked by the ground trap, to which he had not been accustomed, when he first attempted to kill even single birds from it. But for double-shooting, as it is essential that both birds should fly together, the trap that insures this is preferable. One of the worst features of trap-shooting is, that it has fallen mainly into the hands of professionals; and although there is no reason for not pursuing a legitimate sport because blacklegs enjoy it also, they have introduced tricks and artifices that degrade the entire amusement. The use of heavy guns is one of the mildest of these, for it is madness for the best shot in the world to match his ordinary field-gun against a number six bore single-barrelled piece; and they will put a clod of grass or even a dead bird in the same trap with the live one, and if this is a spring-trap, the adversary will be taken at a disadvantage. They deaden their own birds by squeezing them under the wings, and excite those of their opponent by plucking them or pulling their feathers, and can even give them an irregular flight. The professionals, therefore, may be expected to gain a nominal superiority, and claim to be champions, more from their cunning unscrupulousness than from their actual skill, and, by this fancied superiority, degrade the entire sport. The rules which were adopted at a convention of the principal clubs in the State of New York, held in 1865, when the best sporting talent in the country was represented, are given in the Appendix. Although an improvement in many particulars on the former rules, they are not perfect; it is probable that they will be further amended, so as, while increasing the difficulty of killing the bird, to place all sportsmen on an equal footing, and to remove as far as possible the influence of accident. * * * * *