UPLAND SHOOTING. 
301 
or wag his tail, lest the quick eye of the watchful Duck, or their 
almost infallible sense of hearing, detect either by sound or 
sight the impatient movement. Once ordered to recover the 
dead, or, what is worse, the cripples, neither the cold of 
the freezing lake, nor the rough billows of the stormy frith, 
must deter him. In his perfection he is, and needs must be, the 
most intelligent, and so far as endurance goes, the bravest of 
dogs ; and so far as the fowler’s particular sport unquestionably 
lacks that variety and excitement, both of incident and pursuit, 
which gives the great charm to every kind of shooting or hunt¬ 
ing, it will certainly be well to add to it the increased pleasure 
afforded by the use of the retriever. 
I used to suppose that the best species of dog for the Upland 
retriever, is the large Water Spaniel, as, undoubtedly, for sea- 
fowl shooting the small, sharpish-eared, St. John’s Newfound¬ 
land dog is preferable to all other races. In a work which has 
lately come before me, however, of which I think very highly, 
1 find the following observations, the correctness of which I be¬ 
lieve to be indisputable; and I little doubt that the sort of dog 
here described, would be of general utility to the sportsman. 
The book to which I allude is “ The Moor and the Loch,” by 
Colquhoun, of Luss, who, in the sphere of wild sports, to which 
he has paid attention, is not, I think, inferior to Col. Hawker, 
when mounted on his hobby of British sea-fowling. 
From this book, while on the present topic, I shall again 
quote; and, without farther apology or explanation, proceed to 
extract his views as to the dog most fitting as the Duck-shooter’s 
assistant. 
“ Next in importance to the gun,” says Mr. Colquhoun, “ is 
a proper retriever. The Newfoundland is not quite the thing: 
first, his black color is against him”—white, of course, is out of 
the question—“ brown is much to be preferred; then, I should 
wish my dog occasionally to assist me in this inland shooting, 
by beating rushes, or thick cover, up creeks, where you may 
often plant yourself in an open situation for a shot, and your dog 
put up the fowl, which are almost certain to fly down past you. 
