208 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



generally hopeless work, unless on rough, uneven 

 ground. With an early harvest a rare incident it is 

 true pointers can be worked on young birds in high 

 root crops, for a brief period ; but however attractive 

 to a dog-lover the management of his dogs may be, 

 the skill required to bring down close-lying birds with 

 the guns of the present day is of a very modest 

 description. Still, the fact remains that the days of 

 shooting partridges over pointers in England are past 

 and gone, and that the systems of walking them up 

 without dogs, other than retrievers, and of driving, 

 are adopted not as a matter of choice, but as a matter 

 of necessity to procure the game ; a further reason 

 being that with pointers only one or tw T o shooters can 

 enjoy the sport, whilst a half-dozen can share in it if 

 the birds are driven or walked up. 



I have perseveringly used pointers many times on 

 an ordinary clean-farmed estate, well-broken dogs, 

 too ; and I have seen pointers tried by professional 

 and amateur breakers who were wont to say, ' Give 

 us a chance, and you will then see what we can do.' 

 For a few days at the beginning of the season we 

 found and killed young birds, though nothing like the 

 proportion, young and old, that w r ould have been ob- 

 tained without dogs. We certainly had the amuse- 

 ment and interest of seeing the pointers work, but we 

 never half filled the bag as it should have been filled ; 

 and, after all, we desire by fair means to do that, I 

 conclude. 



