CH. v.] IRELAND GROUSE-SHOOTING. 85 



other attendant expenses, they would find that they wreck them- 

 selves at last for comparatively a trifle. 



139. I am, however, wandering from our immediate 

 subject. Let us return to the lecture, and consider how 

 much knowledge your pupil will have acquired by these 

 preliminary instructions. We shall find that, with the 

 exception of a systematically confirmed range, really 

 little remains to be learned, save what his almost un- 

 aided instinct will tell him. 



I will give you an instance of what I mean in the conduct of a 

 young pointer I saw shot over the first day he was ever shown 

 game. You know that in Ireland grouse-shooting does not com- 

 mence before the 2()th of August, a date far more judicious than 

 ours. I well remember that day at Clonmel in the year 1828. Long 

 before any glimmering of light, one of our party had fractured the 

 stock of a favourite double barrel, by carelessly letting it hang 

 across his body at the moment a skittish cob he was riding rushed 

 through a narrow gateway. The extremities of the gun caught the 

 side-posts, and if it had not given way, he must have parted com- 

 pany with his nag. I believe we each made a memorandum, never 

 whilst riding through a gate to let our guns get athwart-ship. The 

 morning turned out so dreadfully wet that, after remaining for hours 

 in a hovel at the foot of the Galtee Mountains, we were forced to 

 return home. The following day we made a fresh start. Being 

 sadly in want of dogs, we took out a young pointer who had never 

 seen a bird, but was tolerably au fait in the initiatory lessons which 

 I have described. In a short time he began to hunt, made several 

 points in the course of the day, and though every thing was strange 

 to him, (for it was the first time he had been associated in the field 

 with other dogs, nay, almost the first time of his being hunted at 

 all,) yet, from his comprehension of the several orders that he 

 received, and perfect obedience, he acquitted himself so creditably, 

 that he was allowed, not only to be one of the best, but nearly the 

 very best broken dog of the party. Indeed, the sportsmen who accom- 

 panied the owner (for three guns shot together a mal-arrangement 

 attributable to accidental circumstances, not choice) could hardly be 

 persuaded that the dog had not been shot over the latter end of the 

 preceding season. 



140. I name this instance, and I can vouch for its 

 truth, not as an example to be followed, for it was most 

 injudicious to have so soon taken out the youngster 

 with companions, but to prove to you how much you 

 can effect by initiatory instruction ; indeed, afterwards, 



