TER AND SETTER.

Hitherto I have omitted to compare the respective merits of pointer and
setter. This I had intended to have done altogether, but fearful lest
fault should be found with me for doing so, I state it as my deliberate
opinion, that there is nothing to choose between them "year in and year
out." A setter may stand the cold better and may stand the briers better,
but the heat and want of water he cannot stand. A pointer, I admit, cannot
quite stand cold so well, but he will face thorns quite as well, if he be
the right sort, and pure bred, but he don't come out quite so well from it
as the setter does. The one does it because it don't hurt him, the other
does it because he is told so to do, and his pluck, his high moral courage
won't let him say no. For heat and drought he don't care a rush,
comparatively, and will kill a setter dead, were he to attempt to follow
him. Westward, in the neighborhood of Detroit, the pros and cons are
pretty equal. I hunt both indiscriminately, and see no difference either
in their powers of endurance, see exceptions above, or hunting
qualifications. For the prairies, however, I should say the pointer was
infinitely superior, for there the shooting--of prairie hen--is in the two
hottest months of the year, and the ground almost, if not quite, devoid of
water. Therefore, the pointer there is the dog, and if well and purely
bred, he is as gallant a ranger as the setter. Eastward, in New Jersey and
Maryland, I am led to believe that setters may be the best there. Except
"summer cock," all the shooting is in spring or late fall. Westward, we
commence quail shooting on September the first. There, I believe, not
until November the first. Here we have few or no briers or thorned things,
save and except an odd blackberry or raspberry bush. There they have these
and cat briers also, and that infernal young locust tree almost would skin
a pointer. Therefore, for those regions, a setter is more preferable.
Still more so the real springer.

BREAKING.

We will now pass on to the breaking of our young dogs. This may be begun
when they are four or five months old, to a certain extent They may be
taught to "charge" and obey a trifle, but it must be done so discreetly
that it were almost better left alone. Nevertheless, I generally teach
them some little, taking care never to cow them, one by one. This
down-charging must be taught them in a room or any convenient place. Put
them into