168 SHOOTING THE GROUSE 



on the average to the handling of a Scotchman than 

 of his English counterpart. The best dog-breakers I 

 have ever seen have been Scotchmen, and one cannot 

 but admire their reluctance to abandon an art in 

 which they excel for what is to them a more irksome 

 and laborious manner of providing sport for their 

 employers. 



But while we may and ought to sympathise with 

 their genuine devotion to the dog, as well as the 

 honest and painstaking assiduity which they bestow 

 on the development of his qualities, we need not be 

 blind to the fact that there is in the large majority of 

 cases the interested motive which I mentioned above. 

 They many of them think more of the bawbees than 

 of sport, and fear they may lose under the new regime 

 a source of profit which they enjoyed under the old. It 

 pays very well to breed pointers and setters at some one 

 else's expense and sell them for your own profit. The 

 kennel of a Scotch shooting tenant is usually a heavy 

 item of outlay to him, but in most cases a profitable 

 business to his keeper. It is the fear lest they should 

 lose this which influences most of them, and causes 

 them to take refuge in the unworthy course of advis- 

 ing their masters that driving is impossible on the 

 moor, that they cannot get men, or that they will 

 drive all the birds off the ground or kill too many 



