58 THE HIGHLA^^DS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



for many sorts of cover shooting where pointers could 

 not be worked. They also keep their health better, 

 and degenerate less in breeding than any other im- 

 ported dog, which is probably due to their descent from 

 a race originated in a warm climate. They make the 

 best of all companions, and are not so liable to "come 

 to grief " in many ways as larger dogs. Fresh imported 

 blood is, however, required, at least once in every two 

 generations, to keep all English sporting dogs up to their 

 best in India. The spaniels should either be large 

 Clumbers, or of the heavy Sussex breed, as a small dog 

 like a cocker cannot jDcnetrate the jungle cover. The 

 noble Clumber, otherwise faultless, has the fault for this 

 particular purpose of giving no tongue on game ; I com- 

 menced the breed, which I maintained for twelve years 

 in India, with a strain of pure Clumber in the never-to- 

 be-forgotten " Quail " — a dog that for looks and quality 

 surpassed anything of the breed I can now discover in 

 England. All his descendants were more or less crossed 

 with Sussex or cocker blood ; but none of them ever 

 gave tongue till the fourth generation, when symptoms 

 of it began to appear. On the whole, then, I think I 

 would prefer the heavy Sussex breed. 



On one occasion the whole of my spaniels were very 

 nearly being "wiped out" by one of a class of accidents 

 that must be looked for in India. I was shooting quail 

 in a grain field near Jubbulj^iir, with "Quail," " Snipe," 

 " Nell," and " Jess," when, on a sudden, they all began 

 to jump violently about, snapping at what seemed to 

 me to be a large rat. But coming nearer I made out 

 that it was a huge cobra, erect on his coil, and striking 

 right and left at the dogs. I lost no time in pelting 

 them off with clods of earth, and then cut the brute's 



