In a choke-bore gun, the end of the barrel is drawn in slightly and made smaller to keep the shot together.  Guns that are used in duck and goose hunting are usually full choked as most of the shots are long ones, but for ordinary brush and field shooting a gun that has a full cylinder right barrel and a modified choke on the left will be the best for general purposes.

The best size is 12-bore or gauge.  Ten gauge guns are entirely too heavy for general use and the smaller bores, such as sixteen or even twenty gauge, while they are very light and dainty, are not a typical all around gun for a boy who can only afford to have one size.  The smaller bores, however, have become very popular in recent years and much may be said in their favour.

The standard length of barrels is either twenty-eight or thirty inches.  The shorter length will probably be just as satisfactory and makes a much better proportion between the stock and barrels.  You can easily test the amount of choke in a 12-gauge gun.  A new ten-cent piece will just go inside the end of the barrel of a full cylinder gun and just fail to go into one that has been slightly choked.

While it is impossible to give any written directions for shooting that are as valuable as actual practice, the important thing for a beginner is to get his form right at first, just as in golf or horseback riding, and then to make up his mind that every shot has got to count.

Rifle shooting is entirely different from shot-gun shooting and skill in one branch of the sport of marksmanship does not mean much in the other.  A boy may be an excellent rifle shot at a stationary target and still not be able to hit “a flock of barns,” as the country boys say, with a shot-gun.  Skill with a rifle is chiefly of value to those who are interested in military affairs and more rarely to those who are fortunate enough to have an opportunity for hunting big game.  In settled communities there is a strong feeling against allowing boys to have rifles.  Practically the only game that can be hunted will be our little friends, the song birds, and no self-respecting boy will shoot them.  A small calibre rifle such as a 22-calibre Flobert will afford considerable pastime at target practice and is also excellent to hunt snakes and frogs along some brook or creek, but generally a boy with a rifle is a public nuisance, and as a rule is liable to arrest in possessing it.  If we fix up a rifle range where there are no dangers of damage from spent bullets or badly aimed shots it is well enough to practise with a small rifle.

A real sporting rifle, such as is used for big game, is a very dangerous fire-arm and cannot be used with safety anywhere but in an absolute wilderness or on a target range.  Such guns will kill at a mile and go through a tree a foot or two in diameter; to use such a weapon in even a sparsely settled section is very dangerous indeed.  If a boy has any chance of going hunting for deer or moose, he will surely