Part 11

All good shots at their best must shoot in the same way: what differs is the way they see their own performances and the way they describe them. This has been dealt with on other pages. But likenesses do not end with actual aiming, for somewhat similar to the American quail shooting described above was the method by which the late Maharajah Duleep Singh killed his 440 grouse in the day. That is to say, he had several brace of dogs with as many handlers going at the same time, and rode from point to point. But for quickness of shooting and changing guns he has probably never been beaten. Every shooter, as far as the author can learn, is sometimes surprised at missing with the first barrel, and at the ease with which the second barrel accomplishes the more difficult task. Surely we may take a lesson from the crack shots who have this experience. The pace at which they are obliged to swing to catch up for the second shot necessitates an uncontrollable gun at the end of the swing—a gun going faster than merely keeping up with the bird, and they kill because they are more forward than they thought. But if so, it may be asked, “What then is the use of alignment?” Precious little for that shot certainly, seeing that there is no time to correct aim. But alignment does not mean looking down the rib and seeing the bird at the end of it; it means looking down the rib _at_ some point in space which moves as the bird moves, and its principal value is not that it is good to correct aim, but that it guides the first swing to the spot. For instance, in the second shot the gun is at the shoulder always, and swings in to the correct place while always in alignment with the eye.

Ten years ago, Sir Ralph P. Gallwey picked out the following as the best shots in England:—Lords de Grey, Walsingham, Huntingfield, Ashburton, Carnegie, Wemyss, and Bradford, the Maharajah Duleep Singh, Messrs. F. E. R. Fryer, A. Stuart Wortley, R. Rimington Wilson, and F. S. Corrance.

_Bailey’s_ list of voted-for good shots was—

1. Earl de Grey.

2. Mr. Rimington Wilson.

Lord Walsingham.

3. Mr. H. Noble.

4. Hon. H. Stoner.

Lord Falconer.

Prince Victor Duleep Singh.

H.R.H. the Prince of Wales.

F. E. R. Fryer.

5. E. de C. Oakley.

Lord Ashburton.

6. A. W. Blyth.

C. P. Wykeham Martin.

Prince F. Duleep Singh.

Lord Carnarvon.

7. Lord Warwick.

Lord Westbury.

Sir Robert Gresley.

Prince Victor Duleep Singh is no doubt about as quick a game shot as his father before him; the latter as a shot compared in the same way with Englishmen as his countryman “Ranji” compares with our slower cricketers.

The Prince of Wales is very quick and very keen; not at all a feather-bed sportsman, he is ready at all times to face the weather for a very little sport. His duck shooting in Canada and his jungle sport in India are within the recollection of everybody. That he does not draw for places is because a host’s will is law even to the heir to England’s crown.

The Hon. H. Stonor, who is not easily beaten for style and accuracy, uses 33 grains of E.C. No. 3 and 1 oz. shot. He uses hammer ejector guns, as do the Prince of Wales, Lord de Grey, and Lord Bradford, who once did some record shooting in Scotland.

Mr. Wykeham Martin is supposed to be as good in a gale of wind as any man, and his rabbit shooting across rides is at least as good as anybody’s. He has made a name for himself on snipe in Ireland, and has the very sporting reputation of being the most unselfish shooter in England.

Mr. R. Rimington Wilson, who has been referred to on another page, is specially good at low crossing grouse, which are generally considered much more difficult than those which show against the sky, and he takes the near birds just above the beak, and as he was described in _Bailey_ by some shooters as the best grouse shot in the world, here is another very good proof of alignment being the correct thing.

Mr. Arthur Blyth has accounted for 64 partridges in one drive, and is considered a brilliant shot.

Mr. E. de C. Oakley is probably the best shot in North Wales; he is especially good in a gale of wind, at hard feathered game, and meets the difficulty with a big charge.

Lord Ashburton is said by several of the voters to be a most graceful shot, and his accuracy is beyond dispute.

Mr. Fryer complains that he gets older while the partridges do not; other people think he uses a 6¼ lb. gun and 1 oz. shot in a way to prevent them getting older.

POINTERS AND SETTERS

Twenty-five years ago the fashion was to decry driving game, and to hold up, as the good old sporting plan, the use of gun-dogs in the pursuit of partridges and grouse. But this was only a fashion of the fashionless. Shooters were not so childish as to decline to shoot in one method because they could not do it in the other, and half the grouse moors and three-quarters of the partridge ground then, as now, could not be worked with pointers and setters without sacrifice of a large portion of the game. Either it was driven away for wiser neighbours to bag, or else it died of old age after doing as much harm to its successors as any early Hanoverian king of England—that is, as much as possible. The reasons for the growth of wildness are many, but in dealing with dogs it is only necessary to take the birds as we find them, and to get them in the most sporting fashion that is left open to us.

At the same time, it may be remarked that the Press changed completely round after the publication of the Badminton shooting books, and it became as unfashionable to write of shooting over dogs as it had been to write of driving.

But the views expressed in the Badminton books were drawn from Yorkshire and Norfolk, and the result was that this time both sportsmen and the Press attempted to force an imitation of those methods that in those counties had only been adopted as a choice of two evils, when birds became so wild that it was a question of driving or no game. This fashion has made the act of shooting take rank above the all-embracing “sportsmanship” in the minds of those who have grasped at and acquired the first-named part without aiming at the whole. But this view is not likely to last longer than the mechanical part of shooting remains a difficulty. It is little likely to do so for long, with so many shooting schools, where clay birds can be sent over the gun in streams at all angles and all speeds. Here the management of two, three, or four guns can be learnt, ambition can be served, and after that a decline in keenness will generally set in. One of the greatest and best shooters of the seventies and eighties, one who carried most weight in the Badminton book, seems to have almost given up, and it may fairly be assumed that when the mechanical part of shooting is once gained to perfection, it leaves no room for further ambition.

But this is far from being true of shooting over dogs. There is so much more to learn than the mere mechanical part of shooting. Whether one breeds dogs, breaks them, works them, or has them worked by others, they are a constant source of anticipation, and anticipation in sport is of far greater interest than realisation.

Possibly one does no good to the interest of anticipation by attempting to assist sportsmen to the choice or breaking of better dogs. Those the author began with were his ideals until he knew of better, and a super-ideal would be useless were it not impossible. But when a poor team of dogs may lead to the abandonment of canine assistance in shooting, it is another matter, and everybody who knows the pleasure given by dogs should strive to improve the race.

For the last forty years there have been held public field trials on game for pointers and setters. Whether these events have been worked off upon paired partridges in the spring, or contested by finding young broods of grouse just before the opening of the season, they have given breeders and sportsmen the chance of breeding by selection for pace, nose, quartering, and breaking. Unfortunately, they have left out stamina. There have been what were at the time called “stamina trials,” but as they were sometimes won by slow dogs they did not merit the high-sounding title, and for real stamina trials one has to go to America.

Trials for ability to stay are much more necessary now than ever before, because the dog shows have ceased to be any assistance to breeders of working dogs. When it was possible to compare at shows the external forms of pointers and setters that had succeeded at field trials, they were of some use, on the ground that true formation is suggestive of stamina. But since separate breeds of dogs have been evolved by the shows for the shows, the working dogs are either not sent to them, or do not win if they are sent, so that the show-winning pointer or setter is taken to be bad and of a degraded sort unless the contrary is proved. This is a great pity, for there is no doubt that stamina is the foundation of almost every other virtue in the pointer and setter.

A dog that cannot go on long has the period of his daily breaking restricted, he does not learn wisdom, he does not gain enough experience to make a proper use of his scenting powers, and if, at last, success in breaking is achieved, then the reward for labour expended is half an hour’s fast work instead of half a day of it.

This means that the shooter must have a large kennel and one or two kennel men, instead of a small kennel easily looked after by a gamekeeper without hindrance to his other work. The question then becomes serious, and those who live in London or in the neighbourhood of big towns usually have not the necessary room for the healthy maintenance of a large kennel of dogs. If they take moors in Scotland or Ireland, the kennels there are usually only of service in the shooting season, especially if the moors are not taken upon long lease. Scotland is bad wintering for dogs bred in England, and although it must not be forgotten that the Duke of Gordon, Lord Lovat, and many other sportsmen wintered their famous kennels of setters in Scotland, their dogs came to have coats much thicker than are to be seen now upon setters—that is, they had less feather but more body covering. At least, that was the opinion formed by the writer on paying a visit to the late Lord Lovat’s kennel in the early seventies. At that time this kennel and that of Lord Cawdor were the only representatives of the old black-white-and-tan kennel of the Duke of Gordon, although the blood of the latter sort was widely spread as crosses in other races of setters. This was obviously so in the black-and-tan kennel of the late Lord Rosslyn (who introduced bloodhound to get the colour), and in that of many English setter kennels. They were known as English setters, and shown as such, only because there was a mistaken idea that Gordons were black-and-tan, without white.

Stamina, then, must be improved if dogs are to be generally popular where they can be used. But some few of the winning field trial workers would look foolish after 30 minutes’ experience of a bed of strong heather. Shooters at Aldridge’s annual sale are frequently observed purchasing two or three little highly broken weeds that could not possibly give satisfaction. There is often a great deal of hustle, fuss, and fictitious pace about the very little dogs that are now sometimes bred, but their bolt is soon shot, and they are a hindrance to sport for the rest of the day. The old dogs that were regarded as stayers did not look to be in such a mighty hurry; they had a long easy stride, with no up and down action (it is that which tires). As being much bigger, they were probably much faster than the little hustler division now so numerous, and some of them could keep up the pace all day. Many could do a half-day’s work, and some of those that were _not_ regarded as stayers were brilliantly fast and slashingly bold for two hours in the morning and another two in the afternoon. The author remembers one of the latter that after winning the National Championship at the Shrewsbury Meeting in the spring put out his shoulder. The mend was a bad one, and although this accident destroyed the stamina it did not interfere much with the pace of this extraordinary dog. Afterwards, for some years, he could beat the best in a most successful field trial kennel for 20 minutes, but then he was done for. What has been said about the uselessness of non-stayers may be emphasised by the experience of this dog, for, although he was often taken out in the spring as a “trial horse” for young ones, it was thought useless to put him into a shooting team for Scotland. That is to say, the most brilliant 20 minutes worker was useless then, and is so now.

It is not often that absolute proof of the value of any individual points in the dog is obtained. But here was one, proving that shoulders have little effect upon speed, but are all-important for staying. When Mr. A. E. Butter’s Faskally Bragg was winning Champion honours on the bench and in the field too, we had the exhibition of a heavy-shouldered dog winning at the shows, where true formation for staying was unknown, and also in the field trials, where it was never tried. Nose, speed, and beauty of attitude in pointing and backing placed this dog at the top, but had there been real stamina trials he would never have been heard of. Once the writer saw him on a freshly-turned sandy plough, where he was hunted against Mr. A. T. Williams’ very small pointer, Rose of Gerwn. The latter went 100 yards for every 20 that Bragg tumbled over. Yet here was your show Champion beaten to a standstill, on the question of external form alone, by an ugly-headed little pointer that could not have won a prize at a show in a class by herself. Yet for heart and courage, for pace, and probably for stamina, there have been few to equal her in the last decade.

The dog-show setters are most beautiful creatures, but the points on which they win here and in America are not the points that a sportsman requires. “Feather” goes a long way towards victory, but in America they _shear_ their setters before the shooting season opens. The reason for this is that the burrs there are not only a nuisance, as they sometimes are here, but a total prevention of sport. Any coat that collects them brings the dog to a standstill in a few minutes. They are much smaller, but the spikes are sharper and stronger than those of the English plant.

Slack loin is only a drawback at the shows, but it _stops_ a dog in work. A long, refined head is a beauty at the shows, but it holds no brains that amount to anything. But worse than all this is the fact that the hunting instinct has lapsed in the show breeds. To be induced to range they must be _excited_. Now, in the truly bred pointer or setter you may start by repressing, go on by directing, and end by many “dressings,” but you cannot weaken the hunting instinct, however you try to do it. In the former sort you have to wind up the clock and put the hands right at every turn, in the latter you have to put the regulator right once and the works will do the rest. It is impossible to endow with instinct at all, and especially is it impossible when excitement has taken the place of the hunting habit. You have only the excitement on which to work to re-create a love of hunting, at the same time that you have to repress excitement in the interests of breaking.

It is not very wonderful that show-bred dogs cannot win field trials. To ask a breaker to educate them is a little worse than to turn Irish salmon into the Thames and expect them to come back there. When the last Thames salmon was killed the last instinct to return to the Thames vanished from _Salmo salar_. You can no more get it back than you can make a field trial dog out of a show-bred one, or bring the dead instinct to life.

Having got the right blood in the form of a puppy of ten or twelve months old, and one that has learnt no bad manners at walk or in some bad breaker’s hands, there is a straight road to success, but one that is not always taken. The first thing to teach a puppy is to understand all you say to it. Until this has been accomplished, the loudest shouts of “Down charge,” “Drop,” or any other order, are in danger of being mistaken for just the opposite to what is intended. Most of the clever breakers at field trials have unique signals, invented by themselves, and practised by nobody else. It is a good way there, and in shooting, because your dog is not then confused by orders given by other people. One man drops his dog by bringing his stick to the ground, and signals it forward by holding up his hand. The general practice is just the reverse. It does not matter what signals or words of command are used if they always mean the same for the dog.

The more often orders are given, and obedience to them is enforced, the more instinctive becomes the dog’s habit of obedience; but against this must be placed the fact that a puppy should never be tired of a lesson. A lesson, before entry on game, should always be only a part of a game at romps to the dog. Consequently, it must not go on so long that the puppy tires of romping, or be repeated so often in the game that the youngster thinks it “a bore.”

Obedience is one thing, prompt obedience quite another; and it is the latter that serves the sportsman, not the former. It is the last stage of hand breaking to ensure prompt obedience when hesitation or unwillingness has gone before. These two stages generally occur in dropping to hand and gun lessons, and in answering whistle, all of which will require a little pushing and pulling force to be used in the early stages, until the meaning of the teacher is grasped by the pupil. Up to this point the order has to be repeated many times as the force is being used, in order that the pupil may grasp the meaning, which he will only do gradually. But after the lesson has once been learnt it is a bad plan to give any order twice. It should be once only, followed by obedience or punishment. This sounds severe, but it is the method for saving the necessity for severity in the future.

After the hand-breaking stage comes temptation during excitement, which is a very different thing from mere “cussedness,” as the Americans call it, in hand breaking, where a pupil only disobeys for the sake of disobedience. That is the reason why prompt and instinctive obedience has to be obtained before the canine pupil goes out into the fields or on to the moors, and sees game. When this excitement begins, all hand-breaking lessons may be forgotten on the spur of the moment, and yet it is extremely important that they should not be, and that there should be no necessity for punishment, and as little as possible for restraint.

It is to avoid these misfortunes that hand breaking should culminate in forced promptitude on the pupil’s part. Up to this time your puppy has dropped and answered the whistle because it pleases you and does not hurt him, and he has done it, possibly, as if he thought you took a particular interest in seeing how long he could be about it. But in the field, and in the presence of hares, such deliberation is a premium on forgetfulness of the breaker’s existence. Then a hare is very likely chased, and a season’s unnecessary work, and of a negative value, has become obligatory in an instant.

On the other hand, if the last lessons in hand breaking are of a kind which make the puppy think that a word and a blow are not separated by distance between the man and dog, hares will never prove a trouble or distance a danger in the field or on the moor.

The way the author brought about prompt obedience was by trickery. Puppies romping in lines were ordered to drop, then the lines would be passed round a tree in front of them, which would, by its position, give a free run to the dogs of 40 or 50 yards when they were called on. But the instant before they reached the limit of the cord the order to drop would be given, so that any hesitation would inflict a sharp tumble by reason of the full limit of the cord having been reached at a gallop. One lesson of that sort gives the dog a sense of the wonderful powers of his breaker, who may be hundreds of yards away when the sudden power is exerted; and about two or three such experiences, in the last week of hand breaking, give the man in the field apparently mesmeric powers over his pupil. It need hardly be pointed out that, to succeed, the dog must expect, or suspect, no trap. Consequently, he must be regularly exercised in his cord, and the trick must not be repeated until the former attempt has been totally forgotten. This can be the more readily brought about by several times dropping the dogs in the ordinary way, and allowing them to find themselves free when the order to come forward is given. In the mind of the pupil, it must not be the cord, but the breaker’s order, that does the jerking.

Usually the author has associated this jerk with the explosion of a pistol, of course after making sure that the dogs did not fear a pistol, and were not “gun-shy,” or to be made so. See what power this gives a breaker at distances beyond the travel of his voice or whistle! A puppy is ranging beautifully half a mile away nearly, and cannot hear your whistle reminding it of its distance. In the contrariness of canine nature, that is the exact instant the only hare in the parish will select to jump up before your puppy’s nose. The strange form and sudden appearance, as from nowhere, will surprise; another instant, the ancestral wild beast of prey will take possession of your cherished pet, now nearly in the next parish, and you would be helpless to intervene but for the gun in your hand and for its associations with the tree and the cord in the park. You fire at the exact instant before canine surprise is succeeded by a burst of coursing speed, and your pupil is glued to the ground, while your only hare is preserved from extinguishing her race and your chances of a broken dog as well.

The worst of permitting puppies to chase once is that they soon learn to chase the trail, or “drag,” of hare when none has been seen. It is difficult to be sure when a puppy is doing this; but never wait until you are sure, is the author’s suggestion: fire at once. Then, if your young dog has been broken on practical lines, you by one operation serve two ends, for you stop a chase and rebuke your dog if there was a hunt, and if not, you have only given an unnecessary lesson in dropping to shot, which generally does good and never any harm, for it disturbs game far less than whistling or shouting.

It is not intended here to repeat the elementary advice about hand breaking. It is much more simple to say that a puppy must be talked to like a little child. It will be much quicker than the child to take a meaning, but it remains a child, if a quick one, all the days of its life.