46 STRENGTH OF TEAM. [OH. in. 



of cock-shooting, in a cocking country, to part with such 

 a team. Hawker terms the sport, " the fox-hunting of 

 shooting." Some sportsmen kill water-hens to young 

 spaniels to practise them in forcing their way through 

 entangled covers, and get them well in hand and steady 

 against the all-important cocking season. 



78. When a regular retriever can be constantly em- 

 ployed with spaniels, of course it will be unnecessary to 

 make any of them fetch game, (certainly never to lift 

 any thing which falls out of bounds), though all the 

 team should be taught to " seek dead." This is the plan 

 pursued by the Duke of Newcastle's keepers, and ob- 

 viously it is the soundest and easiest practice, for it 

 must always be more or less difficult to make a spaniel 

 keep within his usual hunting limits, who is occasionally 

 encouraged to pursue wounded game, at his best pace, to 

 a considerable distance. 



79. Other teams are broken no more than to keep 

 within range, being allowed to hunt all kinds of game, 

 and also rabbits ; they, however, are restricted from 

 pursuing wounded flick further than fifty or sixty yards. 

 Where rabbits are abundant, and outlying, a team thus 

 broken affords lively sport, nothing escapes them. 



80. In the large woods that traverse parts of Kent and Sussex, 

 a kind of hunting-shooting is followed, that affords more fun, where 

 there are plenty of rabbits and but few burrows, than might at first 

 be imagined. The dogs employed are the smallest beagles that can 

 be obtained. The little creatures stick to a hare, rabbit, or wounded 

 pheasant with greater pertinacity than most spaniels, probably 

 because they (the beagles) are slower, and hunt so low. Three or 

 four couples make most animating music in the woodlands, and 



procure many shots, but they awfully disturb game. Mr. D z 



has gorse covers through which openings or rides are cut. He shoots 

 rabbits in them to a team of beagles trained not to notice hare. 

 The burrows are ferreted the preceding day, and regularly stopped. 

 The sport is excellent and most animating. Plenty of snap shots. 

 An old buck rabbit once or twice hunted becomes extremely cun- 

 ning. He is soon on the move, and will work round beyond the 

 dogs, so as to double back upon the ground already hunted. 



