Modern Breaking 39 



the opposite arid drop. The miHtary style of 

 the word seems, however, to exert a pecuHar 

 fascination over some men and they give it 

 with great flourish on slight provocation. In the 

 days of the muzzle-loading gun, the charging 

 of the guns was a matter that required con- 

 siderable time, and the dogs were expected to 

 lie down while it was being done. The com- 

 mand "down charge" was given directly the 

 birds were flushed and the guns discharged. 



The down was for the dog, the word charge 

 was for the handlers shooting companion and 

 signified to him that the guns were now to be 

 loaded. With the advent of the breech-loader, 

 the remark became superfluous, but in adaptmg 

 terms to new conditions, the mistake was made 

 of dropping the wrong word, and "there is no 

 good reason for longer retaining the term 

 "charge" in dog-liandling nomenclature. There- 

 fore, when you want your dog to drop, say 

 drop as c^uietly as possible. 



The terms on, go on, hie on or hie away, 

 sometimes corrupted into "howa," are words 

 that explain themselves and cannot be im- 

 proved. The word "to-ho" is used as an order 

 for the dog to stop. It is not so harsh sound- 

 ing and is easier to pronounce than whoa or 

 stop. The words "fetch" or "go fetch" are 

 self-explaining and cannot be improved upon. 



In field work and field trial nomenclature 



