t-6 MODERN TRAINING. 



be expected that when field sports were in their beginning, 

 the technical terms would be few and variable; it would also 

 be expected that with their growth terms would multiply 

 and have an established meaning. But field sports have 

 been constantly progressing, while the nomenclature re- 

 mains the same. The few terms in use are of the most 

 primitive kind, generally being identically the same that 

 were bequeathed by past ages, and were originally derived 

 from the simplest words. 



Pointing, backing, flushing, ranging, quartering, retriev- 

 ing, pottering, reading, dropping to shot, wing or order, 

 stealing a point, refusing to back, breaking a back, drawing, 

 blinking, jealousy, gunshyness, footscent, body scent, run- 

 ning away or bolting, chasing, dropping to a point, are 

 about all the terms which the nomenclature affords to ex- 

 press the technique of field work or training. All other in- 

 cidental particulars, familiar to sportsmen, have no special 

 nomenclature. This meagerness of terms is more apparent 

 in the reports of field trials and descriptions of hunting 

 experiences where common acts of the dogs are described 

 at length in cumbersome terms again and again, and the few 

 technical terms are repeated with tiresome frequency. Hence 

 the narrations are lacking in the perspicuity, fidelity and 

 vivacity which the scope and variety. of the subject require. 

 Even the common judgment and skill of the dog in finding 

 birds, resulting from superior mental endowments combined 

 with experience, is described by the very crude term " bird 

 sense," plainly a misnomer. 



Excepting the few literary productions which have supe- 

 rior merit from the talent of the writers, this paucity of 

 terms undoubtedly contributes largely to the flatness and 

 sameness of all the average sporting literature. Unless a 

 writer has a fertile imagination and a copious vocabulary, 

 this scantiness of technical material is sure to drag him 



