SPORTING DOGS BREEDING- AND BREAKING. ^79 



after a while. But even then the flies settle on 

 the sores and annoy him very much. 



When Miles Johnson came out to Illinois to 

 shoot with me, he had four as nice pointers as I 

 ever saw, while I had one cross-bred dog between 

 the pointer and the setter which he said did not 

 look to be worth ten dollars. But the pointers, 

 though 'used by turns, soon got sore, and, in order 

 to make frequent changes, he had to take them 

 out when they were hardly fit to go. My cross- 

 bred dog, on the contrary, was at work every day 

 and never tired, so that Miles said many gentlemen 

 in the East, if they saw his style of hunting, his 

 staunchness, and the game and bottom he dis- 

 played, would give five hundred dollars for him. 

 I have bred and used cross-bred dogs for years, 

 and for the Western country, all sorts of work 

 in the field or cover, long days and many days in 

 succession, I hold them to be the best of dogs. 

 I like to put a pointer-dog, well bred and good 

 in the field, to a setter-bitch of the same excel- 

 lent qualities, or a setter-dog to a pointer-bitch ; it 

 makes no difference, that I could ever see, which side 

 the pointer-blood was, though some have a theory 

 that it does. Nor does it matter what the colors 

 of the parents are. From a black setter-dog and 



