SHOOTING IN NEW FOREST 265 



Such a dog will keep close enough to 

 interfere with neither setter nor spaniel* but he 

 will insure that his master does not pass any 

 game within reach of his nose that the setter, 

 ranging a little wide, or a flighty spaniel may 

 perhaps have missed. He is a most useful aid, 

 and, with his education and training, can be 

 relied upon to do nothing wrong. 



As for my own Forest shooting, much as I 

 appreciated it and though I have taken part 

 in many and many a big day's shooting, yet I 

 never enjoyed anything much more than a good 

 day in the Forest with my dogs I can show 

 no such records as those of the keen sportsmen 

 I have just referred to. 



My time was far too fully employed for me 

 to sacrifice it to the long hard day's work that 

 I have been describing. Moreover, such time as 

 I could spare from my office and from other 

 official duties, I preferred to devote to hunting, 

 when I could survey a good tract of the district 

 under my charge, and store up many a note 

 as to the condition of various matters as I 

 rode about the Forest. Further, there was the 

 question of keeping within bounds the wild deer 

 that ever and ever were encroaching in numbers, 

 and this alone occupied most of my bye-days 

 so that altogether, year by year, my book tells 



