54 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA. 



rockets, with a great whirr, straight up for twenty or thirty 

 yards, and then sail away over the top of the cover to a dis- 

 tance of a few hundred yards ; this time plumping into the 

 middle of the cover, from which it is not so easy to raise them 

 again. This beautiful bird is most common in the extreme 

 west of the Central Provinces, and in good spots a bag of 

 ten to fifteen brace to each gun may be made in Nimar 

 and the Tapti valley. 



The most common way of shooting quail and partridges is 

 by beating them out with a line of men; but it is a poor 

 sport compared to shooting them over dogs. I have used both 

 pointers and spaniels in this sport. The former secure the 

 best of shooting in the early morning and late in the evening, 

 while the birds are out of cover and the scent good, and four 

 hours' shooting may thus be had in the day. But a team of 

 lusty spaniels is, I think, on the whole preferable, as they are 

 useful also for many sorts of cover shooting where pointers 

 could not be worked. They also keep their health better, and 

 degenerate less in breeding than any other imported dog, 

 which is probably due to their descent from a race originated 

 in a warm climate. They make the best of all companions, 

 and are not so liable to "come to grief" in many ways as 

 larger dogs. Fresh imported blood is however required, at 

 least once in every two generations, to keep all English sport- 

 ing dogs up to their best in India. The spaniels should either 

 be large Clumbers, or of the heavy Sussex breed, as a small dog 

 like a cocker cannot penetrate the jungle cover. The noble 

 Clumber, otherwise faultless, has the fault for this particular 

 purpose of giving no tongue on game : I commenced the breed, 

 which I maintained for twelve years in India, with a strain 

 of pure Clumber in the never-to-be-forgotten " Quail " a 

 dog that for looks and quality surpassed anything of the breed 



