Much space has been devoted to the breech-loader, for the reason that the writer, while recognising its adaptability to general use, has considered it specially advantageous for the pursuit of the game of which this work particularly treats; that it has defects is not denied, but these are vastly overborne by its advantages. Prejudice is strong; for twenty years the Lefaucheux has been in common use among the French, who had satisfied themselves of its superiority; and it required that time for an invention so simple and easy to test, to cross the narrow channel between the continent and England. Americans are always ready to try a new discovery and judge of its advantages by their own experience; so that it is not probable that the breech-loader will be as long in crossing the “broad Atlantic,” and locating itself securely on our shores. There are now some twenty or thirty of these guns in use among our sportsmen, and they have generally given satisfaction. Of course it requires a short time to accustom oneself to a new implement; and a cheap piece, which it is natural to purchase on an experiment, is a poor affair, and especially so with a breech-loader; but the invention is steadily winning friends. In England, where the nature of the game is not so well calculated for its use as here, the highest authority on sporting gunnery, the editor of the _Field_, who writes under the name of Stonehenge, speaking of the two guns, says: “Indeed, so near is the performance of the two, that we cannot think for a moment that for general purposes there can be a doubt of the superiority of the breech-loader, when quickness of loading, safety, and cleanliness are taken into consideration.” CHAPTER III. BAY-SNIPE SHOOTING. The various writers on the different kinds of sport in our country have generally devoted their attention to upland shooting; to the quail, woodcock, English snipe, ruffed grouse of the hills, dales, and meadows, to the prairie-chicken of the far west, or to the larger game--the ducks, geese, and swans of our coast; and the few suggestions to be found in _Frank Forester’s Field Sports_, or _Lewis’s American Sportsman_, are of little assistance in discussing the mode of capture of their less fashionable and less marketable brethren called bay-snipe. Having no guides to aid me but my own experience, and differing frequently in my views from the opinions expressed by the scientific ornithologists, I approach the consideration of this subject with diffidence; and for the many errors that a pioneer must inevitably commit, I crave the indulgence of the public.