Vernal,
Since you have some mystical "insight" to what MM's intent was when he wrote that article, which by the way, was in the Sept.-Oct. 2010 issue of SSM, I am going to include here two inarguable things printed therein.
The title of the article is "More Things We Can Do Without"
and
A quote from the article ........ "An upland hunter can do himself a treat by installing Cylinder bore tubes in both barrels and losing the others".
One question. Do doves, desert quail and wild pheasant fall under the category "upland birds"?
SRH