172 INSTANCES OF FINE EOADING. [CH. x. 



seems an odd caution to give make him too stanch. 

 This, to be sure, signifies less with partridges than with 

 most birds ; but if you have ever seen your dog come 

 to a fixed point, and there, in spite of all your efforts, 

 remain provokingly immoveable plainly telling you of 

 the vicinity of birds, but that you must find them out 

 for yourself your admiration of his steadiness has, I 

 think, by no means reconciled you to the embarrassing 

 position in which it has placed you. I have often wit- 

 nessed this vexatious display of stanchness, although 

 the owner cheered on the dog in a tone loud enough to 

 alarm birds two fields off. 



288. A keeper will sometimes praise his dog for such 

 stanchness ; but it is a great fault, induced probably by 

 over-severity for former rashness, and the more difficult 

 to be cured, if the animal is a setter, from the crouching 

 position which he often naturally assumes when pointing. 



289. A friend of mine was told by Mr. C 1 (to whom those 



interested in the prosperity of the Edinburgh Zoological Gardens 

 ought to feel much indebted), that a little pointer bitch of his came, 

 on a hot, dry, bad scenting day, to a fixed point. He could not 

 persuade her to move, nor could he or his friend spring any game ; 

 and two not bad-nosed dogs that were hunting with her would not 

 acknowledge the scent, even when they were brought close to the 

 bitch. As she would neither advance nor retire, he actually had 

 her carried off ia a boy's arms. When she was put down, away she 

 ran and resumed her point. After another ineffectual attempt to 

 raise birds, again she was borne off, but only to take up for a third 

 time her point. At length, after a yet closer search in which, 

 however, she still refused to join, a young blackcock was perceived 

 closely buried under a thick piece of heather. The very excellence 

 of the bitch's nose, and her admirable perseverance, made it the 

 more vexatious that she had not been taught the meaning of the 

 signals to advance. One grieves that anything should have been 

 neglected in the education of so superior a creature. 



290. I advised (285) your practising your young dog in "footing" 

 out a scent. Though it occurred many years ago, I remember as if 

 it were but yesterday (from my annoyance at shooting so execrably, 

 when it was peculiarly incumbent on me not to miss), my nearly 

 making a sad mistake with a very young dog, who was following up 

 a retreating bird most magnificently. 



