146 FINISHING LESSONS, ETC. 



wise a good sportsman ought always to lose a shot, 

 rather than neglect his dogs.) 



If you really want game, when the scent is bad, and 

 see precisely where a covey has dropped, let your dogs 

 be taken up, and go first without them ; and if the 

 birds get up singly, never think of picking them up, 

 but make the best of your time in loading and firing. 

 Should you, however, want your dogs, have them one 

 at a time, by making a signal, or whistling to your man 

 who holds them ; but do not speak, lest, by so doing, 

 you might spring the covey. 



If you have a small beat, rather give leave to one of 

 the best shots in England, who is content to shoot 

 twice a week, than to an idle bungler, who is lounging 

 out with a gun every day ; because the one, although he 

 kills game himself, does not prevent you from doing 

 the same, while the other, by harassing the birds, day 

 after day, without intermission, will make them wild, 

 and very probably drive them into another country. 



The foregoing are a few hints that I had hitherto 

 kept to myself; but as now (thanks neither to age nor 

 imprudence, but to accidental circumstances) I have no 

 longer eyes or nerves for pretensions to the name of a 

 shot, the greatest pleasure that can possibly remain for 

 me is to resign the little I have learnt for the benefit of 

 young sportsmen. The rising generation of shooters 

 might otherwise be left, as I was for many years, to 

 find out all these little matters, which not one man in a 

 thousand (admitting that he knows them) likes to im- 

 part to another ; and yet which are so necessary to be 

 known, before even the best shots among them would 

 be able to cope with a crafty old sportsman. 



