that accomplishment would be a great step towards securing
a knowledge of the one we are now considering. Indeed there seems to be a
mutual relation between these two refinements in education, for the
possession of either would greatly conduce to the attainment of the other.

289. This accomplishment--and hardly any can be considered more useful--is
not so difficult to teach an intelligent dog as one might at first
imagine; it is but to lift him, and make him act on a larger scale, much
in the manner described in 212 and 296. Like, however, everything else in
canine education--indeed, in all education--it must be effected gradually;
nor should it be commenced before the dog has had a season's steadying,
then practise him in heading every wounded bird, and endeavor to make him
do so at increased distances. Whenever, also, he comes upon the "heel" of
a covey which is to leeward of him--instead of letting him "foot"
it--oblige him to quit the scent and take a circuit--sinking the wind--so
as to place himself to leeward of birds. He will thereby _head the covey_,
and you will have every reason to hope that after a time his own
observation and intellect will show him the advantage of thus intercepting
birds and stopping them when they are on the run, whether the manoeuvre
places him to leeward or to windward of them.

290. If you could succeed in teaching but one of your dogs thus to take a
wide sweep when he is ordered, and head a running covey before it gets to
the extremity of the field--while the other dogs remain near you--you
would be amply rewarded for months of extra trouble in training, by
obtaining shots on days when good sportsmen, with fair average dogs, would
hardly pull a trigger. And why should you not? Success would be next to
certain if you could as readily place your dog exactly where you wish, as
shepherds do their collies. And whose fault will it be if you cannot?
Clearly not your dog's, for he is as capable of receiving instruction as
the shepherd's.

291. Manifestly it would be worth while to take great pains to teach this
accomplishment, for in all countries it would prove a most killing one
when birds become wild; and it would be found particularly useful wherever
the red-legged partridge abounds,--which birds you will find do not lie
badly when the coveys are, by any means, well headed and completely
broken. But there are other accomplishments nearly as useful as those
already detailed; the descript