A CCIDENT TO DOG BELONGING TO AUTHOR 273 



believed him to be setting the birds in the corrie below 

 me. The bird fell, and the dog howled, and no 

 wonder, poor brute, for he was in a dead line with my 

 shot. Fortunately, however, and to my delight, I found 

 one grain only had struck him in the point of the 

 shoulder, but it had the effect of spoiling a splendid, 

 high-couraged dog, and though I worked him for year? 

 afterwards, he generally blinked his point unless I 

 happened to be near enough to him to speak to him. 

 This dog was brother to Bosco, out of a former 

 litter, and a magnificent goer. Their dam was pro- 

 vided for me by Mr. James Galway, who trained the 

 well-known Waterloo Cup winner, Master Magrath, 

 for Lord Lurgan, and no better judge of either a grey- 

 hound or pointer ever lived. Two pups out of every 

 litter were first-rate, but some of the others fairly good 

 only. They were a rare breed of old-fashioned, 

 double-nosed pointers. 



I always kept my pointers ' at walk ' until they were 

 five months old with the farmers, who took care that 

 they never saw or scented ' fur,' and, indeed, on the 

 farms where I ' walked ' my pointers and hounds there 

 was very little ' fur ' to be found, though plenty of 

 partridges. The poachers had taken care of the ' fur,' 

 but in those days they had not learned how to net 

 birds in those districts. However, things are different 

 now, and netting and bird-snaring is carried on in the 

 most wholesale and scientific manner. 



It is most unwise to place pups out * at walk ' with a 

 farmer who is a * muff,' and does not understand the 

 absolute ruin it is to young dogs to allow them to run 

 riot on hares, etc. With fox or stag hounds the case 

 is different, and it does them more good than harm; but 



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