214 SETTEE'S GOOD NOSE. [CH. xm. 



with a high head, or is shuffling in an undecided manner to the right 

 and left (perhaps even pottering with his nose near the ground), 

 before he can satisfy himself respecting the exact locality of the 

 birds. There are favourable days when any dog can wind game, 

 when finding many birds will far more depend upon " range " than 

 nose. The surest way to test the olfactory powers of different dogs 

 is to take them out directly after mid-day in sultry weather, or 

 when a north-easterly wind has been blowing for some days. If 

 their condition, &c. is then alike, you may be certain that the dog 

 who winds most birds has the finest (or most cautious ?) nose. On 

 such a day chance will but little assist him. 



366. On an extremely bad scenting day in October, 1838, a cold 



dry wind blowing from the east, the Hon. F C , Baron A. 



and Sir F. H , then partridge-shooting at C n, in Stafford- 

 shire, saw a liver-coloured pointer take every point from three setters 

 of some celebrity belonging to a very sporting baronet. The setters 

 did not make a single " set " throughout the day, but ran into the 

 birds as if they had been larks. The pointer's nose was, however, 

 so good that the party, notwithstanding the badness of the scent, 

 bagged thirty-five brace. 



367. The keeper who brought out the setters Avas obliged to own, 

 that he could not otherwise account for the apparent singularity of 

 their behaviour, than by admitting the superiority of the pointer's 

 nose ; yet, judging from the engraving, he did not carry his head 

 well. 



368. A stiffish price had been given for the dog, but I need hardly 

 say that it was not considered unreasonable, after the exhibition of 

 scenting-powers so unusual, fairly tested in the field with com- 

 petitors of established character. 



369. In this instance it was a pointer that evinced singular ten- 

 derness of nose ; but in the following, a setter bore off the palm in 



a contest with good pointers. Mr. Q r, of F w (county of 



Suffolk), who is ari enthusiast about shooting, three years ago took 

 out his favourite dog, a heavy, large-limbed, liver-coloured setter, on 

 a cold, raw, bad-scenting day, together with a brace of pointers of 



high character belonging to another Suffolk sportsman, Mr. W s. 



The latter had expressed rather a contemptuous opinion of the 

 setter, whose appearance was undeniably not very prepossessing ; 

 but to the gentleman's astonishment, and perhaps somewhat to his 

 mortification, the lumbering dog found plenty of birds, though there 

 was so little scent that the vaunted pointers were nearly useless. I 



was told, that at that moment Mr. Q r would not have taken 



two hundred guineas for the animal. 



370. What a pity it is that more pains are not taken to link in 

 matrimonial chains dogs of the rare excellence of nose described in 

 the preceding paragraph, and in 182, 204, and 289, instead of being 

 satisfied with marked superiority in one parent only ! In a setter 

 or pointer sensitiveness of nose is the most valuable natural quality 

 sought for ; correctness of range the most valuable artificial 

 quality. 



