Before taking the field, look well to your shooting-irons.  Fowling-pieces are far more apt to Get Foul while they are lying away during the off season, than when they are taken out for a day’s sport by the fowlers.

On releasing your gun from its summer prison, always examine it carefully, to ascertain whether it is loaded.  This you can do by looking down into the barrel and touching the trigger with your toe.  If your head is blown off, then you may be sure that the gun was loaded.  Otherwise not.

Should your gun be a breech-loader, always load it at the muzzle.  This will show that you know better than the man who made it, or, at least, that he is no better than you.

If you are a novice in gunnery it will be safest for you to put the shot in before the powder.  By doing this you will not only provide against possible accidents, but will secure for yourself the reputation of being a very safe man to go out shooting with.

When you go out with your gun, always dress in a shootable costume.  For instance, if you want to bag lots of Dead Rabbits, TWEED will be the best stuff you can wear—­especially about November 8th, on which day you will be certain to find Some Quail about the polling places. (N.B.  They are beginning to quail already.)

The best time to acquire the art of shooting flying is fly time.  Always carry a whiskey flask about you, so that you can practice at Swallows.

When you hear the drum of the ruffed grouse, steal silently through the thicket and let drive in the direction of the sound.  Should you bring down a target company instead of a ruffed grouse, so much the better.  It will only be bagging ruffs of another kind, and by silencing their drums you will have conferred an obligation upon humanity.

There is much diversity of opinion regarding the best kind of dog for fowling purposes.  It all depends upon what work you want your dog to do for you.  If you want to have birds pointed, a pointer is best for your purpose.  If set, a setter.  But if you want a dog that will go in and kill without either pointing or setting, be sure that the Iron Dog is the dog for your money.  You can procure one of Staunch Blood by application at Police Head-Quarters.

Before going out for a day’s sport, resolve yourself into a committee of one for the preservation of choice ornithological specimens.  By this we do not mean that you are to set up in business as a taxidermist, but that you are bound—­if a true sportsman—­to protect the song birds, and the birds that are useful in destroying noxious vermin, and all the beautiful feathered creatures that ornament our woods, and fields, and parks, from the depredations of the ignorant, loutish, pestilent, pernicious pot-hunter.  The Sportsmen’s Clubs that have been organized throughout the country should be supported by every true sportsman; and if you lay a thick stick vigorously across the back of the first fool you see about to kill Cock Robin, you will have established a very efficacious Sportsman’s Club of your own, and will have earned the best regards of Mr. PUNCHINELLO to boot—­by which he means, if you choose, that you have his leave and license to boot the fellow into the bargain.