EDITOR'S PREFACE. v 



I will conclude by observing, that although this 

 work is exclusively on breaking for English shooting, 

 there is not one word in it, which is not applicable to 

 this country. 



The methods of woodcock and snipe shooting are 

 exactly the same in both countries, excepting only 

 that in England there is no summer-cock shooting. 

 Otherwise, the practice, the rules, and the qualifica- 

 tions of dogs are identical. 



The partridge, in England, varies in few of its 

 habits from our quail I might almost say in none 

 unless that it prefers turnip fields, potatoe fields, long 

 clover, standing beans, and the like, to bushy coverts 

 and underwood among tall timber, and that it never 

 takes to the tree. Like our quail, it must be hunted 

 for and found in the open, and marked into, and 

 followed up in, its covert, whatever that may be. 



In like manner, English and American grouse- 

 shooting may be regarded as identical, except that 

 the former is practised on heathery mountains, the 

 latter on grassy plains ; and that pointers are prefer- 

 able on the latter, owing to the drought and want of 

 water, and to a particular kind of prickly burr, which 

 terribly afflicts the long-haired setter. The same 

 qualities and performances constitute the excellence 

 of dogs for either sport, and, as there the moors, so 

 here the prairies, are, beyond all doubt, the true 

 field for carrying the art of dog-breaking to perfec- 

 tion. 



To pheasant shooting we have nothing perfectly 

 analogous. Indeed, the only sport in North America 

 which at all resembles it, is ruffed-grouse shooting 



