214 KRIDE1VS SPORTING ANECDOTES. 



for his master to speak to him in the first in- 

 stance, to ensure this, after an absence of nearly 

 an hour, and if found lying on the ground, he 

 would rise and resume his true professional 

 attitude as the parties approached. He was a 

 capital retriever and an expert swimmer. It 

 was, probably, owing to his docility in lying 

 close when so ordered, that the lives of the 

 editor and a friend were not endangered, when 

 crossing the Delaware in a skiff during a 

 south-easterly blow. Had he destroyed the 

 equilibrium of the boat, by shifting his posi- 

 tion as the water dashed over him, she must 

 have inevitably filled in the middle of the 

 river. 



In hunting ruffed grouse he displayed great 

 skill and sagacity, watching and taking the 

 direction in which the pack flew, though he 

 never acquired that curious propensity which 

 we have seen manifested by some field dogs, to 

 give tongue the instant that the birds are sprung, 

 and marking the tree on which they often alight 

 at this challenge, continue the clamors at its 

 foot, until half the pack is shot down. In this 

 case the infatuation of the grouse, and its inat- 

 tention to the approach of the shooter and even 

 to the reports of his gun, are more strikingly dis- 



