THE ENGLISH POINTER 689 



ceives another dog to stand at game ; and thirdly, not 

 to stir from his own point at the rising of any bird, or 

 the firing of any gun in the field, provided the game is 

 neither sprung nor started at which he himself origin- 

 ally pointed. Whenever a pointer is conscious of his 

 own powers and education, he makes it his whole 

 business to serve and amuse his master. At the same 

 time he will also perform his work to others to whom 

 he may be lent, and is sensible of the duty required of 

 him the moment he enters the field. 



Pointers are seldom used for any other kind of 

 shooting than that of grouse, partridge, and snipe. 



We are informed of Mr Daniel, that he possessed 

 a pointer which would always go round close to the 

 hedges of a field before he would quarter his ground ; 

 the dog being sensible that he most frequently found 

 his game in the course of this circuit, and therefore 

 very naturally took the middle road to discover it. 



The following interesting fact was communicated 

 to me by an eye-witness. The circumstance happened 

 in Forfarshire, and is a strong proof of the reasoning 

 powers of a dog. "Two or three weeks ago, an 

 acquaintance and I were out shooting in this neigh- 

 bourhood, when we saw the most beautiful thing we 

 ever witnessed in the way of a point : one of our 

 pointers, a bitch, was going over a stone dyke, about 

 four feet high, and just as she made the leap, got the 

 scent of some birds on the other side of the wall. She 

 hung by her fore-legs until we came up. It appeared 

 at the distance we were from her, as if her fore-legs 

 had got fastened amongst the stones in the wall, and 

 that she could not extricate herself. You may judge 

 of our delight when coming up to find that it was her 

 caution, for fear of flushing the birds, that prevented 

 her from taking the leap. It is impossible adequately 



2X 



