THE sportsman's vade mbcum. 29 



him, the other does it because he is told so to do, and his 

 pluck, his high moral courage won't let him say no. For 

 heat and drought he don't care a rush, comparatively, and 

 will kill a setter dead, were he to attempt to follow him. 

 Westward, in the neighborhood of Detroit, the pros and 

 cons are pretty equal. I hunt both indiscriminately, and 

 see no difference either in their powers of endurance, see 

 exceptions above, or hunting quahfications. For the prairies, 

 however, I should say the pointer was infinitely superior, for 

 there the shooting — of prairie hen — is in the two hottest 

 months of the year, and the ground almost, if not quite, 

 devoid of water. Therefore, the pointer there is the dog, and 

 if well and purely bred, he is as gallant a ranger as the 

 setter. Eastward, in New Jersey and Maryland, I am led to 

 believe that setters may be the best there. Except " sum- 

 mer cock," all the shooting is in spring or late fall. West- 

 ward, we commence quail shooting on September the first. 

 There, I believe, not until November the first. Here we 

 have few or no briets or thorned things, save and except an 

 odd blackberry or raspberry bush. There they have these 

 and cat briers also, and that infernal young locust tree 

 almost would skin a pointer. Therefore, for those regions, a 

 setter is more preferable. Still more so the real springer. 



BREAKING. 



We will now pass on to the breaking of our young dogs. 

 This may be begun when they are four or five months old, to 

 a certain extent. They may be taught to " charge" and obey 

 a trifle, but it must be done so discreetly that it were almost 



