POINTERS AND SETTERS 117 



animals can often detect a pair of little partridges at 150 to 200 

 yards away, while, even in our own hands, we men cannot smell 

 the birds at all. The variety in the olfactory powers of the dog 

 sinks almost at one end to that of the man, but at the other is 

 entirely beyond his power of thinking. Consequently, when we 

 set any limitation on the width of ranging, or the width between 

 the parallels in the range, we are often asking the dogs to beat 

 the ground twice or three times, which is opposed to the best 

 canine nature. The author is careless how much ground dogs 

 leave behind provided they leave no game behind. Consequently, 

 if they start fairly, so as to get the wind of the near corners, 

 they may be assumed to know the measure of their own noses, 

 and to beat wide or narrow, and with parallel quarterings near, 

 or far apart, as necessary. The wider in both cases the better, 

 provided they leave no game behind. If they commit this 

 fault, they are only wild, and may be assumed to be scamping 

 their work. 



It has often happened that the most capable dogs in a stake 

 have run great risks of being thrown out for an appearance of 

 scamping their ground, when, as a matter of fact, they were 

 leaving no game behind, and knew it. This generally happens 

 when the scent is extra good and the dogs know that they can 

 take what are regarded as liberties in their range. But when 

 scent is bad, on hot August days, and the pollen is flying from 

 the heather bloom, these wide rangers will be narrow enough, 

 and will be the only dogs that can find at all. Then those that 

 have had for safety to hunt in narrow parallels in good scent, 

 will be as unable as a man to smell a grouse. It is for this 

 reason that the writer, when judging at a field trial, would 

 never condemn wide or forward ranging unless game was 

 actually proved to be left behind. Quartering is the means to 

 an end, and not the end itself, and it was far more effectively 

 done at field trials years ago, before people began to treat it 

 as an end in itself. Since then brace work has declined, and 

 brace work had always been that in which it was expected, and 

 happened, that the winners should find everything on their 

 ground, and neither flush nor miss anything. 



