94 The Dog Book 
then as now, keepers and other capital marksmen, who would bring down 
their small bird at fifty or sixty yards, with almost unerring aim. For my 
part I can have no idea of the period in our sporting annals, when, to shoot 
flying with the gun was an uncommon attempt, at least within the period 
in which locks upon the present principle have been in use.” 
But we can carry shooting flying still another fifty years back, and that 
through the poet Gay. It may be incidentally remarked that Mr. Simons, 
from whom we will soon quote freely, and whose knowledge covered the 
period from the time of the poet Gay to well after the date given as the early 
recollection of William Henry Scott, refers to shooting on the wing as a 
matter of course. His instructions to the young sportsman begins with 
going out with an unloaded gun, with a stiff piece of leather for the flint, 
so as to get accustomed to “the spring of the bird” and become uniform 
in his covering the birds at or very near the same distance. “Let him 
accustom himself not to take his gun from his arm till the bird is on the 
wing.” And now for the poet Gay, from whose poems, published in 1720, 
we get this: 
“See how the well-taught pointer leads the way; 
The scent grows warm; he stops; he springs the prey; 
The fluttering coveys from the stubble rise, 
And on swift wing divide the sounding skies; 
The scattering lead pursues the certain sight, 
And death in thunder overtakes their flight. 
Nor less the spaniel, skilful to betray, 
Rewards the fowler with the feathered prey. 
Soon as the labouring horse with swelling veins 
Hath safely housed the farmer’s doubtful gains, 
To sweet repast th’ unwary partridge flies, 
With joy amid the scattered harvest lies; 
Wandering in plenty, danger he forgets, 
Nor dreads the slavery of entangling nets.” 
This quotation is valuable for two things, it being the earliest mention 
of the pointer that we have been able, so far, to come across and the first 
reference to shooting on the wing, and the conclusion they thus point to 
is that they were introduced into England simultaneously. 
One would naturally suppose that the setting dog would have been 
made use of at once to set the game for shooting on land, but such does not 
seem to have been the case. The Gentleman's Recreation, by Nicholas Cox, 
published about 1700—our copy is the sixth edition and is dated 1721— 
