283. Should it ever be your misfortune to have to correct in a dog evil habits caused by past mismanagement, such an attendant, if an active, observant fellow, could give you valuable assistance, for he sometimes would be able to seize the cord immediately the dog began “feathering,” and generally would have hold of it before you could have occasion to fire. But the fault most difficult to cure in an old dog is a bad habit of ranging. If, as a youngster, he has been permitted to beat as his fancy dictated, and has not been instructed in looking to the gun for orders, you will have great, very great difficulty in reclaiming him. Probably he will have adopted a habit of running for a considerable distance up wind, his experience having shown him that it is one way of finding birds, but not having taught him that to seek for them by crossing the wind would be a better method.
Curiously enough, nature has given this systematic range to the stoat,[50] though, happily for the poor rabbits, it cannot carry a high nose, and therefore the parallels on which it hunts are necessarily not far apart. This interesting proceeding is occasionally witnessed by those keepers who injudiciously prefer their game-disturbing guns to their vermin-destroying traps.[51]
CHEETA AND ANTELOPES.
284. The great advantage of teaching a dog to point the instant he is sensible of the presence of birds ([260]), and of not creeping a foot further until he is directed by you, is particularly apparent when birds are wild. While he remains steady, the direction of his nose will lead you to give a tolerable guess as to their “whereabouts,” and you and your companion can keep quite wide of the dog (one on each side), and so approach the birds from both flanks. They, meanwhile, finding themselves thus intercepted in three directions, will probably lie so close as to afford a fair shot to, at least, one gun, for they will not fail to see the dog and be awed by his presence. Raise your feet well off the ground, to avoid making a noise. Walk quickly, but with no unnecessary flourish of arms or gun. They may fancy that you intend to pass by them:—a slow cautious step often raises their suspicions. (Most sportsmen in the Highlands prefer a low cap, or a wide-awake, to a hat; one of the motives for this choice being that the wearer is less conspicuous,—not appearing so tall. It is because he will not appear so tall that he thinks he can get nearer to a pack by approaching the birds up hill, rather than by coming down upon them from a height. Many an old sportsman crouches when approaching wild birds.) As soon as you and your friend are in good positions, you can motion to the dog to advance and flush the birds. You should on no account halt on the way, for the moment you stop they will fancy they are perceived, and take wing. It is by driving round and round, constantly contracting the circle, and never stopping, that the bullock-cart, carrying the trained cheeta, is often brought within 100 yards of the herd of antelopes, amidst which is unsuspiciously browsing the doomed dark buck.[52] Driven directly towards the herd, the cart could not approach within thrice that distance. In Yorkshire, very late in the season, when the grouse are so scared that they will not allow a dog or man to get near them, it often happens that a good bag is made by the gun keeping just ahead of a cart and horse. Here, however, no circuit is made. The birds are found by chance. The only dog employed is the retriever, kept in the cart until he is required to fetch.
285. You must not, however, too often try to work round and head your pupil when he is pointing. Judgment is required to know when to do it with advantage. If the birds were running, you would completely throw him out, and greatly puzzle and discourage him, for they probably would then rise out of shot, behind you, if they were feeding up wind,—behind him, if they were feeding down wind.[53] Far more frequently make him work out the scent by his own sagacity and nose, and lead you up to the birds, every moment bristling more and more, at a pace[54] entirely controlled and regulated by your signals. These being given with your right hand will be more apparent to him if you place yourself on his left side. It is in this manner that you give him a lesson which will hereafter greatly aid him in recovering slightly winged birds,—in pressing to a rise the slow-winged but nimble-heeled rail,—or in minutely following the devious mazes through which an old cock-pheasant, or yet more, an old cock-grouse, may endeavour to mislead him. And yet this lesson should not be given before he is tolerably confirmed at his point, lest he should push too fast on the scent; and make a rush more like the dash of a cocker than the sober, convenient “road” of a setter. As his experience increases he will thus acquire the valuable knowledge of the position of his game:—he will lead you to the centre of a covey, or what is of greater consequence—as grouse spread—to the centre of a pack, (instead of allowing himself to be attracted to a flank by some truant from the main body), and thus get you a good double shot, and enable you effectually to separate the birds:—he will, moreover, become watchful, and sensible of his distance from game—a knowledge all-important, and which, be it remarked, he never could gain in turnips or potatoes, or any thick cover.
286. Mr. C——s R——n, well known in Edinburgh, told me that a black and tan pointer of his (Admiral M——y’s breed) gave, on one occasion, a very clever proof of his knowledge of the distance at which he ought to stand from his game. He was ranging in thick stubble. Some partridge, being slightly alarmed, rose a little above the ground, and then dropped very near the dog,—upon which the sagacious creature instantly crouched close to the ground, his head between his fore-legs, and in that constrained position ventre-à-terre, pushed himself backwards until he had retreated to what he conceived to be a judicious distance from the covey, when he stood up and pointed boldly.
VEXATIOUS STANCHNESS.
287. There is another and yet stronger reason why you should not consider it a rule always to head your young dog at his point. You may—although at first it seems an odd caution to give—make him too stanch. This, to be sure, signifies less with partridges than with most birds; but if you have ever seen your dog come to a fixed point, and there, in spite of all your efforts, remain provokingly immoveable—plainly telling you of the vicinity of birds, but that you must find them out for yourself—your admiration of his steadiness has, I think, by no means reconciled you to the embarrassing position in which it has placed you. I have often witnessed this vexatious display of stanchness, although the owner cheered on the dog in a tone loud enough to alarm birds two fields off.
288. A keeper will sometimes praise his dog for such stanchness; but it is a great fault, induced probably by over-severity for former rashness,—and the more difficult to be cured, if the animal is a setter, from the crouching position which he often naturally assumes when pointing.
INSTANCES OF FINE ROADING.