ONE OF THE OLD STOCK. 



75 



'as 



a slight display of resistance on the part of the 

 former, but it was badly conceived and worse exe- 

 cuted, so it was not persisted in. At length we 

 entered a snipe marsh. Both dogs kept together, as 

 if entirely of one mind, exhibiting externally a- most 

 beautiful and touching example of the extraordinary 

 friendship of Damon and Pythias. But a snipe now 

 flushed. Ponto went down to shot, but his dear 

 chum kicked up such a row and struggled so violently, 

 that the old veteran took the recusant insubordinate 

 by the neck and simply choked him into a proper 

 sense of the heinousness of his conduct. The pointer 

 retrieved, the spaniel had to go and see this part of 

 the repulsive work performed, and somehow or 

 other the gun-shy dog commenced to evince evidence 

 of a belief that it was dawning upon his intelligence 

 that there was some fun and a good deal of excite- 

 ment to be obtained in the society of a man and gun. 

 That spaniel proved after a brief time to be one of 

 the very best cover dogs I ever possessed. Out of 

 twenty, possibly more, trials that I have made to 

 cure gun-shyness, the above is the only instance that 

 I can quote where success rewarded my efforts. But 

 on this occasion I had many things in my favour ; 

 the spaniel was remarkably high-couraged and 

 passionately fond of hunting. Even then I should 

 have failed but for the assistance of old Ponto. But 

 who has now got one of that antediluvian stock } 

 No one in England that I wot of, although in the 

 South of France and Spain they may still be picked 

 up, and in which countries they are made more 

 hideous than Nature ever intended them to be by 

 docking off half their tails. 



Captain Peel, of the Royal Scots — my old regi- 

 ment — was a great authority on sporting dogs. He 

 wrote ^ book upon the subject that had for years 

 a well-merited popularity. I have known him on 

 many occasions try to break pointers and setters 



