FIRST LESSON IN AUTUMN COMMENCED. 60 7 



CHAPTER VI. 



FIRST LESSON IN AUTUMN COMMENCED. BANGING. 



124. A KEEPER nearly always breaks in his young 

 dogs to " set," if their ages permit it, on favorable days 

 in Spring, when the partridges have paired.* He gets 

 plenty of points, and the birds lie well. But I cannot 

 believe it is the best way to attain great excellence, 

 though the plan has many followers : it does not cultivate 

 the intelligence of his pupils, nor enlarge their ideas by 

 making them sensible of the object for which such pains 

 are taken in hunting them. Moreover, their natural 

 ardor a feeling that it should be his aim rather to 

 increase than weaken is more or less damped by having 

 often to stand at game before they can be rewarded for 

 their exertions by having it killed to them, it prevents, 

 rather than imparts, the zeal and perseverance for which 

 Irish dogs are so remarkable. Particularly ought a 



* In ordinary seasons immediately after St. Valentine's Day 

 before the birds have made their nests. The first of September is 

 the commencement of partridge shooting in England, as the 26th 

 of Oct. and the 1st of ISov. are generally in America for quail. 



All the breaking for partridge in this work, is applicable and 

 must be referred to quail in America. Grouse shooting on the 

 moors, in England is applicable to our prairie shooting, and pheasant 

 shooting to our ruffed grouse shooting, when that may be had. 

 The reader must, therefore, transfer the months and seasons according 

 ly. H. W.H. 



