254 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
make a semicircle, so as to get the bird down wind of him, 
and for this cause, and for others, of which anon, in no 
kind of shooting is an extremely steady dog more neces- 
sary than in this. 
Many writers, for this reason, recommend as the best 
dog, for this sport, a very slow, old pointer—as if slow 
dogs must needs always be steady, or fast dogs unsteady. 
Neither of the two is the truth. 
For young sportsmen, for general shooting, I do, most 
assuredly, recommend the pointer in preference to the set- 
ter, and most of all for snipe-shooting, though for myself I 
choose, and to all old and thorough workmen I advise, the 
setter. 
Young sportsmen cannot be expected to break their 
dogs, and all shooting over setters is in some sort dog- 
breaking; nor even to keep their well-broken dogs, by 
their own conduct, well broken. A good pointer keeps 
himself broken. 
Iam well pleased to find that my preference for, or 
prejudice in favor of—I care not which it is called—the 
setter, is fully shared by that great authority Colonel 
Hutchinson, whose work on dog-breaking is incomparably 
the best in existence; and for precisely the same reasons, 
which I have often previously given, although, until I 
have had this volume in preparation, I have never had 
the opportunity of consulting him. He likewise draws the 
same distinction with myself between steadiness and slow- 
ness. 
If birds be in abundance, it matters not a straw how 
slow a dog may be, nor much whether one have a dog at all. 
