140 AGE IN DOGS ADVANTAGEOUS. [CH. vm. 



sagacity would probably have borne it triumphantly through another 

 campaign or two, had not the farmer's quick eye detected its adroit 

 manoeuvre, one that forcibly calls to mind Cooper's descriptions of 

 the stratagems employed by the North American Indians to baffle 

 pursuit by leaving no indication of their trail. 



237. Must there not be experience on the part of dogs to contend 

 successfully with such wiliness as this ? So much was the last Duke 

 of Gordon convinced of its necessity, and he is well known to 

 have been a capital sportsman, and to have paid great attention to 

 his fine breed of black setters, that he would never allow one of 

 them to accompany him to the moors that had not been shot over 

 five or six seasons and "small blame" to his Grace "for that 

 same," as he had a choice from all ages. But it must be acknow- 

 ledged, that however excellent * in many respects, and when in the 

 hands of the breaker their indomitable energies would cause the 

 bunch of heather, fastened to the end of their checkcords, to dance 

 merrily over the mountains from morning until night-fall, most of 

 them were a wild set in their youth, and required constant work to 

 keep them in order. Every experienced sportsman in the High- 

 lands is aware that young dogs will romp (for it cannot be termed 

 hunting), with their noses here, there, and everywhere, obtaining but 

 few points over ground on which knowing old dogs will immediately 

 afterwards keep the gun-barrels at an exhilarating temperature. 



238. When you hunt a brace of dog?, to speak theoreti- 

 cally, they should traverse a field in opposite directions, 

 but along parallel lines, and the distance between the lines 

 should be regulated by you according as it is a good or 

 a bad scenting day, and according to the excellence of 

 the dogs' noses. Mathematical accuracy is, of course, 

 never to be attained, but the closer you approach to it 

 the better. 



pheasants, avers that they have vein." The more fat and yellow 



not the flavour of barn-door fowls that appears, the higher is the 



if they are cooked before they condition of the animal. Blow 



drop from the single tail feather aside the feathers of a snipe ; and 



by which, he says, they should be if the flesh is nearly black the 



hung up in the larder ; or, rather, bird wants condition, it should 



he advises that two pheasants be white. 



should be suspended by one feather * On the 7th of July, 1836, his 

 until both fall. Birds of full, kennel was put up to auction, 

 beautiful plumage gratify the eye when three of his setters fetched, 

 more than the palate. It is an severally, seventy-two, sixty, and 

 indication of age in all sorts of fifty-six guineas. Two puppies 

 birds. The hens are the tenderest. brought fifteen guineas 'each, 

 On the body of birds, immediately and two of his retrievers, " Bess " 

 under the wing, there is what and " Diver," forty-six and forty- 

 keepers often call, " the condition two guineas. 



