Note 35 — Chapter IV · DENIZENS OF THE WOODS, &c.—BIPEDS.

The writer has enjoyed the privilege (often a welcome relief from hard literary, and other labours) of shooting over this ground for more than a quarter of a century, having known it for double that period. His father-in-law had it before him; a genuine sportsman of the old type, being one of a trio, who clung to the last, even far into the seventies, to the old flint gun—the late General Hall, of Sixmile Bottom, near Newmarket, being the second, and I believe the famous sportsman, Sir Richard Sutton, the third, two of whose guns became the property of my father-in-law. Only one man was left in the kingdom who made the flints. A grand weapon was a genuine “flint” of old “Joe” Manton; with plenty of metal, a hard hitter, and often equally serviceable when converted into a breech-loader. Its only drawbacks were, that the exposure of the powder rendered it uncertain in damp weather; and the slowness of ignition; but this latter, to a sportsman who had known no other “arm of precision,” was little hindrance, and naturally, entered into his calculations whenever he pulled trigger.