46 THE HIGHLANDS OF CENTRAL INDIA 



and excellent on the table, his habits in the field admirably 

 adapt him for the purposes of the gun. He frequents the 

 outskirts of cultivation, in spots where bushes and grass- 

 cover fringe the edge of a stream, for he seems to be very 

 impatient of thirst. The proximity of some sort of jungle 

 seems to be as necessary as the neighbourhood of crops. 

 Morning and evening small coveys or pairs of them will 

 be found out feeding in the stubble of the cut autumn 

 crops, that latest reaped being the most likely find. On 

 being disturbed they seldom run farther than to the edge 

 of the nearest cover, from which, on being flushed, they 

 rise like rockets, with a great whirr, straight up for twenty 

 or thirty yards, and then sail away over the top of the 

 cover to a distance of a few hundred yards; this time 

 plumping into the middle of the cover, from which it is 

 not so easy to raise them again. This beautiful bird is 

 most common in the extreme west of the Central Provinces, 

 and in good spots a bag of ten to fifteen brace to each 

 gun may be made in Nimar and the Tapti valley. 



The most common way of shooting quail and part- 

 ridges is by beating them out with a line of men; but 

 it is a poor sport compared to shooting them over dogs. 

 I have used both pointers and spaniels in this sport. The 

 former secure the best of shooting in the early mormng 

 and late in the evening, while the birds are out of cover 

 and the scent good, and four hours' shooting may thus 

 be had in the day. But a team of lusty spaniels is, 

 I think, on the whole preferable, as they are useful also 

 for many sorts of cover shooting where pointers could 

 not be worked. They also keep their health better, and 

 degenerate less in breeding than any other imported dog, 

 which is probably due to their descent from a race originated 

 in a warm cUmate. They make the best of all companions, 

 and are not so liable to " come to grief " in many ways as 

 larger dogs. Fresh imported blood is, however, required, 

 at least once in every two generations, to keep all English 

 sporting dogs up to their best in India. The spaniels 

 should either be large Clumbers, or of the heavy Sussex 

 breed, as a small dog like a cocker cannot penetrate the 

 jungle cover. The noble Clumber, otherwise faultless, has 



