The spud is at once his dagger, his knife and fork, his chisel, his grub-axe, and his gouge.

It is a piece of iron (rarely or never of steel, for he does not know how to harden it) about ten inches long, an inch and a half wide at the top or broadest end, where it is shaped and sharpened like a chisel, only with the edge not straight but sloping, and from thence tapering to a point at the other, the pointed part being four-sided, like a nail.
It has, indeed, been supposed that the original spud was formed from a large wrought-iron nail, such as the ancients used, sharpened on a stone at one end, and beaten out flat at the other.

This instrument has a handle in the middle, half-way between the chisel end and the point.

The handle is of horn or bone (the spud being put through the hollow of the bone), smoothed to fit the hand.

With the chisel end he cuts up his game and his food; the edge, being sloping, is drawn across the meat and divides it.