4 HALLOOING SPOILS SPORT. [CH. i. 



he may not permit a fault to pass unreproved (I do not 

 say unpunished) which at a less exciting moment he 

 would have noticed and that, on the other hand, he 

 may not correct a dog the more harshly, because the 

 shot has been missed, or the game lost ; and lastly, the 

 exercise of a little reflection, to enable him to judge 

 what meaning an unreasoning animal is likely to attach 

 to every word and sign, nay to every look. 



7. With the coarsest tackle, and worst flies, trout can 

 be taken in unflogged waters, while it requires much 

 science, and the finest gut, to kill persecuted fish. It is 

 the same in shooting. With almost any sporting-dog, 

 game can be killed early in the season, when the birds 

 lie like stones, and the dog can get within a few yards 

 of them ; but you will require one highly broken, to 

 obtain many shots when they are wild. Then any in- 

 cautious approach of the dog, or any noise, would flush 

 the game, and your own experience will tell you that 

 nothing so soon puts birds on the run, and makes them 

 so ready to take flight, as the sound of the human voice, 

 especially now-a-days, when farmers generally prefer 

 the scythe to the sickle, and clean husbandry, large 

 fields, and trim narrow hedges, (affording no shelter from 

 wet) have forced the partridge a short-winged* bird 



* Rounded, too, at the extremi- for the table. Hold an old and 

 ties the outer feathers not being a young bird by their under 

 the longest a formation adverse beaks between your fore-finger 

 to rapid flight. The extreme outer and thumb, and you will soon see 

 feather of young birds is pointed, how little, comparatively, the old 

 and, until late in the season, ac- beak yields to the weight. This 

 companies soft quills, weak brown rule applies equally to grouse, the 

 beaks, and yellow legs. These legs of which birds when young 

 (beaks and legs) become grey on are not much feathered, but late 

 maturity, or rather of the bluish in the season it is difficult to de- 

 hue of London milk and the termine their age. Yet a know- 

 quills get white and hard facts ing hand will find a difference, the 

 which should be attended to by old birds' legs will still be the 

 those who are making a selection more feathered of the two ; and 



