THE COCKING SPANIEL. 201 



beat every inch of a ground at a trot, and never stir out 

 of gunshot of the sportsman ; but it is, as I have said, but 

 once or twice in a lifetime. 



These are the just reasons, why pointers and setters 

 are in England, rarely, if ever, used in woodlands. 



Here the case is altered, since with the exception of 

 snipe-shooting on the marshes and grouse-shooting on the 

 prairies, there is in America no distinctly open shooting. 

 In the Northern States and provinces, especially, where 

 autumn shooting is and must ever be the principal and 

 choicest pursuit of the true sportsman, open shooting and 

 covert shooting are so inseparably combined, from the 

 habits of the birds pursued, that no line of distinction 

 can be drawn. 



The quail, which is the principal object of pursuit, 

 must be found and roused on his feeding grounds, in the 

 stubbles, orchards or meadows, and, when once scattered, 

 followed up and killed in the densest and heaviest brakes 

 and coverts. 



To find them, the greatest speed and the widest range 

 is necessary ; to finish up the scattered bevies in good style, 

 the closest and most accurate, inch by inch ground, or foot, 

 hunting. 



The perfection of the thing, if means permitted, would 

 be of course to drive the open grounds with setters or 

 pointers, and then, when the game should be driven into 

 covert, to couple up these, and let loose spaniels wherewith 

 to beat the brakes and thickets. 



This, however, would require such a number of dogs 

 and servants to be kept, so large an expense and so sys- 

 9* 



