336 EMPLOYMENT OF THE DOG IN HUNTING, ETC. 
wind stirring. It is true that few dogs will find game on such a 
day ; but there are some which will reduce their pace accordingly, 
and these are generally to be found among the true pointers, bred 
with ag large heads as possible consistently with the possession of 
frames suited to go through their work. They need not be very 
fast, but they should keep at their work steadily, and in that way 
will cover a vast deal of ground in a short time, never flushing 
even a single bird, and rarely leaving one behind them. Such a 
dog, if well matched with another, is the one to kill game to ; and 
if the sportsman will only give the brace time to try their ground, 
and will avoid spoiling them by running into wounded birds and 
other indiscretions, he will find that for all kinds of open shoot- 
ing they are invaluable. Irish setters are thought very highly of 
by some people; but those which I have used have been head- 
strong and unruly, while I never found any superiority in their 
noses; nor is their endurance, as far as I have seen, greater than 
that of our best English breeds. With a dog formed like the 
animal from which the engraving of the Irish setter was taken, 
great endurance may be expected, and his nose was equal to any 
emergency. The Russian setter I know very little of, so can give 
no reliable opinion on his merits. 
In conducting the beat, whether for partridge or grouse, it is 
always desirable to give these dogs the wind, inasmuch as they 
generally find their game by the scent wafted to them in the air, 
and not by the foot-scent. Sometimes they are obliged to “road” 
a running bird, especially with: grouse, which will often take the 
pointer or setter a long way, and a stupidly stiff old-fashioned 
pointer which refuses to stir is an abomination. Nothing is more 
* annoying than to see birds get up far out of shot, while the pointer 
is “steady as a crutch” at his first point, where he caught the 
scent and where they started from. A sensible dog would either 
have drawn up to his birds after waiting till his master was close 
up, or he would have left his point and gone round to head them 
if he was unusually clever in his vocation. Such a feat is by no 
means unattainable, if dogs are broken to beat towards the shooter 
as explained at page 294; but some stupid brutes will never learn 
to do it of their own accord, and must be sent round by their 
master, which causes delay and takes away half the advantage of 
