CH. xvii.] SETTER PREFERRED TO POINTER, 295 



field by a dog that retrieves. Unless you have such 

 a companion, there will be but little chance of your 

 often securing a slightly winged bird in turnips. In- 

 deed, in all rough shooting, the services of a dog so 

 trained are desirable to prevent many an unfortunate 

 hare and rabbit from getting away to die a painful, linger- 

 ing death ; and yet, if the possession of a large kennel is 

 ever likely to prove half as inconvenient to you as it 

 would to me, you would do well, according to my idea 

 of the matter, to dispense with a regular retriever, 

 provided you have a highly-broken setter who retrieves 

 well. 



537. I say setter rather than pointer, not on account 

 of his more affectionate, and perhaps more docile dispo- 

 sition (for certainly he is less liable to sulk under 

 punishment), but because, thanks to his long coat, he 

 will be able to work in any cover, and that from nature 

 he " roads " quicker. 



I must, however, plead guilty (for many good sportsmen wil 

 think I evince bad taste) to a predilection for setters meaning 

 always cautious setters a partiality, perhaps, attributable to 

 having shot more over wild, uncertain ground than in well-stocked 

 preserves. Doubtless, in a very enclosed country, where game is 

 abundant, pointers are preferable, far preferable, more especially 

 should there be a scarcity of water ; but for severe and fast work, 

 and as a servant of all work, there is nothing, I humbly conceive, 

 like the setter.* He may be, and generally is, the more difficult to 

 break ; but when success has crowned your efforts, what a noble, 

 enduring, sociable, attached animal you possess. I greatly, too, 

 admire his long, stealthy, blood-like action, (for I am not speaking 

 of the large heavy sort before which in old days whole coveys used 

 to be nettled), and the animated waving of his stern, so strongly 

 indicative of high breeding ; though, strange to say, in gracefulness 

 of carriage the fox, when hunting, and actually on game, far excels 

 him. But we are again getting astray beyond our proper limits ; 

 let us keep to the subject of dog-breaking. 



* This note on setters, poachers, has placed it in an Appendix, 

 keepers, bloodhounds, night-dogs, See page 344. 

 &c., is so long, that the printer 



