GROUSE- AND PAIiTRIDGE-SHOOTING. 319 



will cover a vast deal of ground in a short time, never flushing 

 even a single bird, and rarely leaving one behind them. Such a 

 dog, if well matched with another, is the one to kill game to ; and 

 if the sportsman will only give the brace time to try their ground, 

 and will avoid spoiling them by running in to wounded birds and 

 other indiscretions, he will find that for all kinds of open shoot- 

 ing they are invaluable. Irish setters are thought very highly of 

 by some people ; but those which I have used have been head- 

 strong and unruly, while I never found any superiority in their 

 noses, nor is their endurance, as far as I have seen, greater 

 than that of our best English breeds. With a dog formed like 

 the animal from which the engraving at page 97 was taken, 

 great endurance may be expected, and his nose was equal to any 

 emergency. The Russian setter I know very little of, so can give 

 no reliable opinion on his merits. 



In conducting the heat, whether for partridge or grouse, it is 

 always desirable to give these dogs the wind, inasmuch as they 

 generally find their game by the scent wafted to them in the 

 air, and not by the foot-scent. Sometimes they are obliged to 

 "road" a running bird, especially with grouse, which will often 

 take the pointer or setter a long way, and a stupidly stiff old- 

 fashioned pointer which refuses to stir is an abomination. 

 Nothing is more annoying than to see birds get up far out of 

 shot, while the pointer is " steady as a crutch " at his first 

 point, where he caught the scent and where they started from. 

 A sensible dog would either have drawn up to his birds after 

 waiting till his master was close up, or he would have left his 



