296 TO RETRIEVE SECOND SEASON. [CH. xvn. 



538. As it will be your endeavour, during your pupil's 

 first season, to make him thoroughly stanch and steady, 

 I cannot advise you (as a general rule liable, of course, 

 to many exceptions one of which is named in 317), to 

 let him retrieve, by retrieve I always mean fetch, 

 until the following year. There is another advantage 

 in the delay. His sagacity will have shown him that 

 the design of every shot is to bag the game when, 

 therefore, he has once been permitted to pick up a bird, 

 he will be desirous of carrying it immediately to you, 

 and will resist the temptation to loiter with it, mouthing 

 and spoiling it ; and however keenly he may have 

 heretofore " sought dead," he will henceforth search with 

 redoubled zeal, from the delight he will experience in 

 being permitted to carry his game. Moreover, the 

 season's shooting, without lifting, will have so tho- 

 roughly confirmed him in the " down charge," that the 

 increased * inclination to bolt off in search of a falling 

 bird will be successfully resisted. If he has been taught 

 while young to "fetch" (107, 109, &c.), he will be so 

 anxious to take the birds to you, that instead of there 

 being any difficulty in teaching him this accomplish- 

 ment, you will often, during his first season, have to 

 restrain him from lifting when he is "pointing dead." 

 The least encouragement will make him gladly pick up 

 the birds, and give them, as he ought, to no one but 

 yourself. 



539. Suppose you possess no regular retriever if, instead of 

 lifting your game yourself, you accustom one of your pointers or 

 setters to do so, you will occasionally, in some odd manner, bag a 

 bird which you would otherwise inevitably lose. In 97 is given 

 such an instance ; and in Scotland, no later than last season, I saw 

 another. An outlying cock-pheasant rose out of stubble. It was a 

 long shot, but he was knocked over, falling into an adjoining piece 



* "Increased :" the gratification of carrying being far greater than 

 that of merely " pointing dead. " 



