UPLAND SHOOTING. 325 



into gorse or low cover, in the middle of" the day, which few 

 Pointers will face. I know it is not the fashion to shoot to dogs 

 in cover ; but most true sportsmen prefer shooting five brace of 

 pheasants to Setters or mute Spaniels, to fifty brace to beaters. 

 In the latter case you stand sometimes an hour together without 

 getting a shot; and then they rise a dozen at a time, like bai-n- 

 door fowls, and as many are killed in a few hours as would serve 

 for weeks of fair shooting. 



" ' In the season of 1839 I was asked for a week's shooting into 

 Somersetshire, by an old friend, whose science in everything 

 connected with shooting is first-rate. Then, for the first time 

 for many years, I had my dogs, English Setters, beaten hollow. 

 His breed was from pure Russian Setters, crossed by an 

 English Setter dog, which some years ago made a sensation in 

 the sporting world, from his extraordinary peiformances ; he 

 belonged to the late Joseph Manton, and had been sold for a 

 hundred guineas. Although I could not but remark the excel- 

 lence of my friend's dogs, yet it struck me, as I had shot over 

 my own old favorite Setter — who had himself l)eat many good 

 ones, and never before been beaten — for eight years, that his 

 nose could not have. been right, for the Russians got three points 

 to his one. I therefore resolved to tiy some others against 

 them the next season ; and having heard a gentleman, well 

 known as an excellent judge, speak of a brace of extraordinaiy 

 dogs he had seen in the neighborhood of his Yorkshire moors, 

 with his recommendation I purchased them. I shot to them in 

 August ]S40, and their beauty and style of performance were 

 spoken of in terms of praise by a correspondent to a sporting 

 paper. In September I took them into Somersetshire, fully 

 anticipating tliat I should give the Russians the go-by; but I 

 was again disappointed. I found, from the wide ranging of my 

 dogs, and the noise consequent upon their goin^ so fast through 

 stubbles and turaips — particularly in the middle of the day, 

 when the sun was powerful, and there was but little scent — that 

 they constantly put up their birds out of distance ; or, if they 

 did get a point, that the game would rarely lie till we could get 



