100 "BREAKING" IN PAIRING SEASON. [en. vi. 



game, before they can be rewarded for their exertions 

 by having it killed to them, it prevents, rather than 

 imparts, the zeal and perseverance for which Irish dogs 

 are so remarkable (565). Particularly ought a breaker, 

 whose pupil is of a nervous temperament, or of too 

 gentle a disposition, to consider well that the want of 

 all recompence 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 "touseling." (See also end of 280.) The 

 very fact that " the birds lie well " frequently 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 stanch point. A keeper, however, has 

 but little choice, (and it is not a bad time to teach 

 the back,) if his master insist upon shooting over the 

 animals the first day of the season, and expect to find 

 them what some call "perfectly broken in." But 

 I trust some few of my readers may have nobler 

 ends in view, and that they will cheerfully sacrifice 

 a little of their shooting the first week of the season, to 

 ensure super-excellence in their pupils at its close. Ee- 

 member, I do not object to spring drilling, (vide 131) 

 but to much spring pointing. 



171. 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 



