e of these initiatory
lessons, and fancy you have not time to attend to them. By teaching them
well you will gain time,--much time,--and the time that is of most value
to you as a sportsman; for when your dog is regularly hunting to your gun
his every faculty ought to be solely devoted to finding birds, and his
undisturbed intellects exclusively given to aid you in bagging them,
instead of being bewildered by an endeavor to comprehend novel signals or
words of command. I put it to you as a sportsman, whether he will not have
the more delight and ardor in hunting, the more he feels that he
understands your instructions? and, further, I ask you, whether he will
not be the more sensitively alive to the faintest indication of a haunt,
and more readily follow it up to a sure find, if he be unembarrassed by
any anxiety to make out what you mean, and be in no way alarmed at the
consequences of not almost instinctively understanding your wishes?

49. In all these lessons, and those which follow in the field, the
checkcord will wonderfully assist you. Indeed it may be regarded as the
instructor's right hand. It can be employed so mildly as not to intimidate
the most gentle, and it can, without the aid of any whip, be used with
such severity, or I should rather say perseverance, as to conquer the most
wild and headstrong, and these are sure to be dogs of the greatest travel
and endurance. The cord may be from ten to twenty-five[11] yards long,
according to the animal's disposition, and may be gradually shortened as
he gets more and more under command. Even when it is first employed you
can put on a shorter cord if you perceive that he is becoming tired. In
thick stubble, especially if cut with a sickle, the drag will be greater,
far greater than when the cord glides over heather. The cord may be of the
thickness of what some call strong lay-cord, but made of twelve threads.
Sailors would know it by the name of log-line or cod-line. To save the end
from fraying it can be whipped with thread, which is better than tying a
knot, because it is thus less likely to become entangled.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Imitative creatures! who can doubt it? If you make an old dog perform
a trick several times in the sight of a young one who is watching the
proceedings, you will be surprised to see how quickly the young one will
learn the trick, especially if he has seen that the old dog was always
rewarded for his obedience.

[9] Obedience to all such s