[f. prec. + PIECE sb.]
1. A light gun for shooting wild fowl.
1596. Lanc. Wills, III. 4. A foulinge piece.
1643. [Angier], Lanc. Vall. Achor, 31. God sent a deadly messenger out of a Fowling Piece to one of them.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Of Fowling pieces, those are reputed the best, which have the longest barrel, viz. from 51/2 foot, to 6; with an indifferent bore.
1839. G. Bird, Nat. Philos., 130. The well-known double report of a fowling-piece, fired at a distance, probably arises from a similar cause, the sound of the explosion being conducted to the ear, unequally by the air, and the masses of vapor floating in it.
a. 1864. Hawthorne, S. Felton (1883), 244. The old fowling-piece of seven-foot barrel, with which the Puritans had shot ducks on the river and Walden Pond.
2. A picture of game.
1888. Athenæum, 7 Jan., 21/2. The fowling-piece, which is something like the fine picture at the Prado.
