INITIATORY LESSONS WITHIN BOOKS. 471 



is about six or seven months old* although I allow t hat 

 some dogs are more precocious than others, and bitches 

 always more forward than dogs but it ought to be nearly 

 completed before he is shown a bird (111). A quarter 

 of an hour's daily in-door training called by the Ger- 

 mans " house-breaking " for three or four weeks will 

 effect more than a month's constant hunting without 

 preliminary tuition. 



15. Never take your young dog out of doors for in- 

 struction, until he has learnt to know and obey the several 

 words of command which you intend to give him in the 

 field, and is well acquainted with all the signs which you 

 will have occasion to make to him with your arms. These 

 are what may be called the initiatory lessons. 



16. Think a moment, and you will see the importance 

 of this preliminary instruction, though rarely imparted. 

 Why should it be imagined that at the precise moment 

 when a young dog is enraptured with the first sniff of 

 game, he is, by some mysterious unaccountable instinct, 

 to understand the meaning of the word " Toho ?" Why 

 should he not conceive it to be a word of encouragement 



* But from his very infancy you ought not to have allowed him 

 to be disobedient. You should have made him know which he 

 will do nearly intuitively that a whip can punish him, though he 

 ought never to have suffered from it. I have heard of pups only 

 four months old being made quite au fait to the preliminary drill 

 here recommended. This early exercise of their intelligence and 

 observation must have benefited them. The questionable point \ 

 the unnecessary consumption of the instructor's time. 



