Retrieving by Sight. IOI 
again to a pheasant butchery, because you shoot well, and 
know a cock bird from a henon the wing. But what does 
a hundred such days amount toP A blurred picture of 
smoke, fire, noise, and feathers, with nothing to distinguish 
‘one battue from another, nothing to leave an impression 
worth retaining. I have tried it, and, trust me, it is 
altogether vanity compared with a quiet walk with a dog 
along a lonely Australian shore, the interminable forest 
behind you redolent of aromatic gums in the fierce sun, a 
vast mud flat before you, and outside that the blue Pacific 
Ocean, a solitary teal, a long shot, and then the pleasure of 
watching the exercise of faculties in your dog which you 
even need not disdain to possess. Memory treasures those 
scenes, and reproduces them with marvellous fidelity years 
afterwards, affording an ever new delight. 
During my boat excursions with a friend among the 
numerous islands and up the creeks entering Moreton Bay, 
it was the habit of this retriever to sit on the stern seat, 
sheltered from the sun by a little canopy rigged for his 
express benefit—for the hot sun punishes a black dog severely 
—and act as our look-out. while we sculled the boat through 
narrow passages, and punted her over shallows, our attention 
being then fully engaged, lest with a falling tide we should 
be left stranded for several hours to bake in a temperature 
of 130deg. Fahrenheit, with the alternative of wading 
ashore over the mud, and being tortured by mosquitos under 
the shade of the mangrove trees. The dog proved very 
useful; for, on seeing duck either on the wing or sitting on 
the banks, he would whimper and call our attention to them 
at once, while gazing steadily in the direction. Then, if 
circumstances permitted, the boat would be paddled towards 
them, and one of us would get out and circumvent the birds, 
the other waiting in the boat for a chance shot as they came 
over. By this means many a fine duck or brace would 
be secured which would otherwise have been overlooked. 
The great distance at which the dog was able to see the 
