The Pointer 297 



partridges, black game, pheasants, snipes and rabbits on the same day, 

 but was never known to point a hare. She has sometimes stood a jack- 

 snipe when all the pointers had passed by it; she would back the dogs 

 when they pointed, but the dogs refused to back her until spoke to, their 

 dogs being trained to make a general halt when the word was given, whether 

 any dog pointed or not, so that she has been frequently standing in the 

 midst of a field of pointers. Her pace was mostly a trot; was seldom 

 known to gallop except when called to go shooting. She would then come 

 home full stretch off the forest, for she was never shut up. She obeyed 

 the call as well as any dog and was as much elevated when shown the gun. 



"She has frequently stood a single partridge at forty yards' distance, 

 her nose in a direct line to the bird. After standing for some time she 

 would drop like a setter, still keeping her nose in a direct line, and would 

 keep in that position until the game moved. If it took wing she would 

 come up to the place and put her nose down two or three times, but if the 

 bird ran she would get up and go to the place and draw slowly lafter it till 

 the bird stopped, when she would stand it as before. 



"Slut was about five years old when her master died, and at the auction 

 of his pointers and effects she was bought for ten guineas by Sir H. Mildmay 

 and taken to Dagmersfield Park, where she remained several years. She 

 was last in the possession of Colonel Sikes, and when ten years old would 

 point game as well as before, but had become fat and slothful. When 

 killed at Basilden House, she weighed 700 pounds." Mr. Daniel very 

 properly adds that her death, "to those who possess common feehngs of 

 humanity, appears at least animal murder. It would have cost but a 

 trifling sum to have fed and sheltered her in winter, and the park would 

 have supplied her wants during the summer at no expense." 



Very little is to be learned about the pointer in Daniel's "Rural Sports"; 

 indeed, he does not seem to have had much fancy for the breed, even for 

 pheasant shooting, preferring spaniels, and in the open shot over setters. 

 The white setter illustrated in the article on the English setter, Part II., 

 is his setter Beau, painted by Reinagle. What little he says about the 

 pointer is to the effect that he is the Spanish dog crossed and improved. 

 His version of the sale of Colonel Thornton's Dash has been copied by all 

 writers down to the time of Mr. Lee, and if the story we have given is 

 correct, then Daniel is wrong. It is not a matter of much consequence, 

 only it shows what a very small amount of original investigation has been 



