INITIATORY LESSONS CONTINUED. 480 



attend to them. By teaching them well you will gaiii 

 time, much time, and the time that is of most value 

 to you as a sportsman ; for when your dog is regularly 

 hunting to your gun his every faculty ought to be solely 

 devoted to finding birds, and his undisturbed intellects 

 exclusively given to aid you in bagging them, instead of 

 being bewildered by an endeavor to comprehend novel 

 signals or words of command. I put it to you as a 

 sportsman, whether he will not have the more delight 

 and ardor in hunting, the more he feels that he under- 

 stands your instructions? and, further, I ask you, 

 whether he will not be the more sensitively alive to the 

 faintest indication of a haunt, and more readily follow it 

 up to a sure find, if he be unembarrassed by any anxiety 

 to make out what you mean, and be in no way alarmed 

 at the consequences of not almost instinctively under- 

 standing your wishes ? 



49. In all these lessons, and those which follow in the 

 field, the checkcord will wonderfully assist you. Indeed 

 it may be regarded as the instructor's right hand. It 

 can be employed so mildly as not to intimidate the most 

 gentle, and it can, without the aid of any whip, be used 

 with such severity, or I should rather say perseverance, 

 as to conquer the most wild and headstrong, and these 

 are sure to be dogs of the greatest travel and endur- 

 ance. The cord may be from ten to twenty-five* yards 



* With a resolute, reckless, dashing dog you may advantageously 

 employ a thinner cord of double that length, whereas, the shortest 



