2o0 BREAKING AND ENTERING. 



One advantage lie will assuredly have when he begins the actual 

 war against the birds in September, namely, that his dogs will 

 cheerfully work for him, and will be obedient to his orders ; but 

 at the same time he must not expect that they will behave as 

 well then as they did when he considered their education com- 

 plete in the previous April or May. No one who values "the 

 bag " above the performance of his dogs will take a young 

 pointer into the field at all, till he has been shot over for 

 some time by a man who makes it his business to break dogs, 

 and who is not himself over-excited by the sport. It is aston- 

 ishing what a difference is seen in the behaviour of the yoimg 

 dog when he begins to see game falling to the gun. He may 

 go out with all the steadiness which he had acquired by two 

 months' drilling in the spring ; but more frequently he will have 

 forgotten all about it, unless he is well hunted in the week 

 previous to the opening of the campaign. But no sooner has 

 he found his birds or backed his fellow-pointer, and this good 

 behaviour has been followed by the report of the gun, heard 

 now almost for the first time, and by the fall of a bird or two 

 within a short distance, than he becomes wild with excitement, 

 and, trying to rival the gun in destructiveness, he runs into 

 his birds, or plays some other trick almost equally worthy of 

 punishment. For this there is no remedy but patience and 

 plenty of hard work, as we shall presently find ; and I only 

 mention it here, in order that my readers may not imdertake 

 the task without knowing all its disagreeables as well as the 

 advantages attending upon it. 



