3 8o EMPLOYMENT OF THE DOG IN HUNTING, ETC. 



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 at page 150 was taken, great 

 endurance may be expected, and his nose was equal to any emer- 

 gency. The Eussian 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 326; 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 the 

 plan. Beyond a repetition of the cautions as to making the 

 dog work to hand, and keeping him steady "down charge," 



