384 OUTDOOR LIFE IN ENGLAND 



of good retrievers. Barely one retriever out of 

 twenty so-called is worthy of the name. The 

 rubbishy, ill-broken animals which are brought 

 into the field, in no way to the furtherance of 

 sport, but rather to its detriment, cannot be called 

 retrievers. They may be, and often are, dogs of 

 high pedigree and great beauty, but they are sadly 

 deficient in nose and intelligence ; such natural 

 abilities as they possess have not been made the 

 most of by the breaker, and but few of them are 

 to be trusted 'at heel' without a slip. It seems 

 as if the art of dog-breaking were becoming extinct. 

 A well-broken retriever is a very valuable animal, 

 and not to be purchased for a low price ; nor is 

 a retriever trained without the exercise of some 

 trouble, experience, and patience. Strange to 

 say, the most highly-bred dogs are often the 

 worst retrievers, and a clever mongrel, no matter 

 how plain he may be, is worth any number of 

 handsome, well-bred, but useless animals, which, 

 though capable of taking high honours on the show- 

 bench are useless in the field. ' Handsome is as 

 handsome does,' and appearance and breeding are 

 but of slight avail when it is desired to recover 

 a wounded bird quickly and quietly. My own 

 experience inclines me to the belief that the better 

 bred a dog may be, the bigger fool he frequently 

 is. Nose and brains a retriever must have, and 

 if he does not possess these, he is not worth 

 a charge of powder and shot for sporting pur- 

 poses. The intellectual powers of a dog may be 



