WELL-TRAINED POINTERS. 271 



like a paint-brush ; hind legs a la grenouille. Ponto 

 was therefore no beauty ; but having invested the 

 sum of five pounds in the purchase of the said 

 Ponto, I was obliged to take him for better for 

 worse. Being my own property, I could do as I 

 liked with him, and that goes for something with a 

 youth of seventeen ; so, after a little more wrangling, 

 we became very attached friends, without his again 

 attempting to attach himself to my coat collar. 



My father possessed a perfect kennel of pointers, 

 as beautiful as Houris, but these were never 

 allowed to be used without the keeper's presence 

 in the field. The appearance and working of these 

 pointers was the most perfect thing of the sort I 

 have ever witnessed. They were often taken out 

 all together, eight bitches of one colour, white, 

 with tanned ears, and of beautiful symmetry. 

 Their style of hunting, standing, and backing 

 each other was quite perfection. I remember on 

 one occasion the keeper sending them over a wall 

 just before he approached it, on the other side of 

 which was a covey of birds. They, of course, 

 dropped directly, but the last bitch was scam- 

 bling over the wall, when, catching sight of her 

 companions, she clung on the top, and there re- 

 mained until he had flushed the birds. 



In partridge shooting there should be as little 



