FIRST LESSON IN AUTUMN CONTINUED. 555 



150. You have been recommended invariably to enter 

 every field by the leeward side. This you can generally 

 accomplish with ease, if you commence your day's beat 

 to leeward. Should circumstances oblige you to enter a 

 field on the windward side, make it a rule, as long as 

 your dog continues a youngster, to call him to "heel," 

 and walk down the field with him until you get to the 

 opposite side the leeward then hunt him regularly 

 up to windward. 



151. I have read wondrous accounts of dogs, who, 

 without giving themselves the trouble of quartering their 

 ground, would walk straight up to the birds if there were 

 any in the field. It has never been my luck, I do not say 

 to have possessed such marvellous animals, but even to 

 have been favored with a sight of them. I therefore 

 am inclined to think, let your means be what they may, 

 that you would find it better not to advertise for crea- 

 tures undoubtedly most rare, but to act upon the com 

 mon belief that, as the scent of birds, more or less, 

 impregnates the air, no dog, let his nose be ever so 

 fine, can, except accidentally, wind game unless he 

 seeks for the taint in the air and that the dog who 

 regularly crosses the wind must have a better chance 

 of finding it than he who only works up wind and 

 that down wind he can have little other chance than 

 by "reading." 



152. It is heedlessness the exact opposite of this 

 extreme caution that makes young dogs so often dis- 

 regard and overrun a slight scent ; and since they are 



