140 HINTS ON GROUSE DRIVING. 



for this heavy killing business, where from twenty 

 to fifty brace have frequently to be picked up after 

 each drive, to get hold of retrievers that, however 

 keen at first, do not get eventually surfeited with the 

 constant carrying of the dead birds. It is therefore 

 not a bad plan, before allowing the dogs to commence, 

 or, if tied up, releasing them from their peg, for one 

 or two of the inmates of the butt to sally forth first 

 and pick up for themselves what birds they can see 

 lying around for the space of two or three minutes. 



One of the best of the slow, pottering sort of 

 retriever, above alluded to, that I have ever seen 

 was an ugly mongrel, the one pup saved from the 

 litter of a chance retriever bitch, imported into this 

 country from the Dogs' Home at Battersea, on a 

 temporary engagement as foster mother to a litter of 

 valuable pointers ; and I have little doubt that ere 

 now the youthful baronet well known at the Gun 

 Club into whose possession passed Waif, as the 

 dog was aptly named, has often since had reason to 

 bless the lucky moment when he acquired this astute 

 assistant. 



As a specimen of what the fast, high-ranging, 

 quick-galloping retriever should be, I have never 

 seen anything to equal my well-known prize-taker 

 Rhiwlas Jet, who to the nose of a sleuthhound unites 

 the pace of a greyhound, the tractability of a poodle, 

 and the tenderness of a chiropodist; and distant be 

 the day when she and I have to part company. 



