240 Modern Dogs. 



lovely shelter for the birds. I am writing of inland 

 shooting now, and not of the moors. One thing 

 with another and the old system is changed. On 

 some of the best partridge land in England, and so 

 in the world, birds are not usually killed over dogs ; 

 they are either walked up by the shooters moving 

 on in a row, or driven where the sportsmen take 

 their stands or their seats and wait until accumu- 

 lated coveys of partridges fly within gunshot. 



Still, the old style is the best, and nothing prettier 

 in the way of sport is there than walking behind a 

 brace of well-trained pointers, either through turnips 

 or over rough land, and killing your birds as your 

 dogs find them, first one dog and then the other, 

 quartering right and left, crossing correctly, and 

 backing as occasion requires. To kill driven birds 

 may require a smart shot, to kill them when walking 

 in a line may require nerve and steadiness ; but to 

 kill them over dogs, you acquire some knowledge of 

 the habits of the game you are after, and, moreover, 

 are proud in the possession of a brace of animals 

 which, without prejudice, you may believe to be the 

 best in the universe. 



All things in this world pretty much find their 

 level ; may be, had such not been the case, the race 

 of the pointer would have died out when he came to 

 be so little used, through what some are pleased to 



