168 RANGE OF STOAT. [CH. x. 



most difficult to cure in an old dog is a bad habit of 

 ranging. If, as a youngster, he has been permitted to 

 beat as his fancy dictated, and has not been instructed in 

 looking to the gun for orders, you will have great, very 

 great difficulty in reclaiming him. Probably he will 

 have adopted a habit of running for a considerable dis- 

 tance up wind, his experience having shown him that 

 it is one way of finding birds, but not having taught 

 him that to seek for them by crossing the wind would 

 be a better method. 



Curiously enough, nature has given this systematic range to the 

 stoat,* though, happily for the poor rabbits, it cannot carry a high 

 nose, and therefore the parallels on which it hunts are necessarily 

 not far apart. This interesting proceeding is occasionally witnessed 

 by those keepers who injudiciously prefer their game-disturbing 

 guns to their vermin-destroying traps.f 



284. The great advantage of teaching a dog to point the instant 

 he is sensible of the presence of birds (260), and of not creeping a 

 foot further until he is directed by you, is particularly apparent 

 when birds are wild. While he remains steady, the direction of 

 his nose will lead you to give a tolerable guess as to their " where- 

 abouts," and you and your companion can keep quite wide of the 

 dog (one on each side), and so approach the birds from both flanks. 

 They, meanwhile, finding themselves thus intercepted in three direc- 

 tions, will probably lie so close as to afford a fair shot to, at least, one 

 gun, for they will not fail to see the dog and be awed by his presence. 

 Kaise your feet well off the ground, to avoid making a noise. Walk 

 quickly, but with no unnecessary flourish of arms or gun. They may 

 fancy that you intend to pass by them : a slow cautious step often 

 raises their suspicions. (Most sportsmen in the Highlands prefer a 

 low cap, or a wide-awake, to a hat; one of the motives for this 

 choice being that the wearer is less conspicuous, not appearing so 

 tall. It is because he will not appear so tall that he thinks he can 

 get nearer to a pack by approaching the birds up hill, rather than 

 by coming down upon them from a height. Many an old sports- 

 man crouches when approaching wild birds.) As soon as you and 

 your friend are in good positions, you can motion to the dog to 

 advance and flush the birds. You should on no account halt on the 



* "Which becomes white in a trapping, and keeper's vermin- 

 severe winter, a regular ermine ; dogs, &c., is so long that the 

 the only one of the weazel-tribe printer has placed it in an Appen- 

 that does so in England. dix. 



t This note on the subject of 



