UPLAND SHOOTING. 
331 
into gorse or low cover, in the middle of the day, which few 
Pointers will face. I know it is not the fashion to shoot to dogs 
in cover; but most true sportsmen prefer shooting five brace of 
pheasants to Setters or mute Spaniels, to fifty brace to beaters. 
In the latter case you stand sometimes an hour together without 
getting a shot; and then they rise a dozen at a time, like barn¬ 
door fowls, and as many are killed in a few hours as would serve 
for weeks of fair shooting. 
“ ‘ In the season of 1839 I was asked for a week’s shooting into 
Somersetshire, by an old friend, whose science in everything 
connected with shooting is first-rate. Then, for the first time 
for many years, I had my dogs, English Setters, beaten hollow. 
His breed was from pure Russian Setters* crossed by an 
English Setter dog, which some years ago made a sensation in 
the sporting world, from his extraordinary performances; he 
belonged to the late Joseph Manton, and had been sold for a 
hundred guineas. Although I could not but remark the excel¬ 
lence of my friend’s dogs, yet it struck me, as I had shot over 
my own old favorite Setter—who had himself, beat many good 
ones, and never before been beaten—for eight years, that his 
nose could not have been right, for the Russians got three points 
to his one. I therefore resolved to try some others against 
them the next season ; and having heard a gentleman, well 
known as an excellent judge, speak of a brace of extraordinary 
dogs he had seen in the neighborhood of his Yorkshire moors, 
with his recommendation I purchased them. I shot to them in 
August 1S40, and their beauty and style of performance were 
spoken of in terms of praise by a correspondent to a spoiling 
paper. In September I took them into Somersetshire, fully 
anticipating that I should give the Russians the go-by; but I 
was again disappointed. I found, from the wide ranging of my 
dogs, and the noise consequent upon their going so fast through 
stubbles and turnips—particularly in the middle of the day, 
when the sun was powerful, and there was but little scent—that 
they constantly put up their birds out of distance; or, if they 
did get a point, that the game would rarely lie till we could get 
