638 DOG-BREAKING. 



breaker, whose pupil is of nervous temperament, or of 

 too gentle a disposition, to consider well that the want 

 of all recompense for finding paired birds must make a 

 timid dog far more likely to become a " blinker," when 

 he is checked for not pointing them, than when he is 

 checked for not pointing birds which his own impetuosity 

 alone deprives him of every chance of rapturously " tou- 

 seling." The very fact that "the birds lie well" fre- 

 quently leads to mischief; for, if the instructor be not 

 very watchful, there is a fear that his youngsters may 

 succeed in getting too close to their game before he 

 forces them to come to a staunch point. A keeper, 

 however, has but little choice and it is not a bad time 

 to teach the back if his master insists upon shooting 

 over the animals the first day of the season, and expects 

 to find them what some call "perfectly broken in." 

 But I trust some of my readers have nobler ends in 

 view ; therefore, 



125. I will suppose your youngster to have been well 

 grounded in his initiatory lessons, and that you take 

 him out when the crops are nearly off the ground by 

 which time there will be few squeakers on a fine cool 

 day in September, alas ! that it cannot be an August 

 day on the moors, to show him birds for the first time. 

 As he is assumed to be highly bred, you may start in 

 the confident expectation of killing partridges over him, 

 especially if he is a pointer. Have his nose moist and 

 healthy. Take him out when the birds are on the feed, 

 ami of an afternoon in prefmence to the morning, 



