THE SE1'TER. 133

not ¢ ‘mg able to acknowledge the scent, went off, clearly
imagining the bitch was in error. She, however, held on,
and in beautiful style brought us up direct to a covey. My
friend and I agreed that she must have been but little, if at
all, less than one hundred yards off when she first winded
the birds; and it was clear to us that they could not have
been running, for the breeze came directly across the furrows,
and she had led us in the wind’s eye. We thought the
point the more remarkable, as it is generally supposed that
the strong smell of turnips diminishes a dog’s power of
scenting birds.”
The Setters Mr. Huet tells the following story of the sagacity
Sagacity. of the setter. “The gamekeeper had, on one of
the short days of December, shot at and wounded a deer.
Hoping to run him down before night, he instantly put the
dog upon the track, which followed it at full speed, and soon
was out of sight. At length it grew dark, and the gamekeeper
returned home, thinking he should find the setter arrived
there before him; but he was disappointed, and became ap-
prehensive that his dog might have lost himself, or fallen a
prey to some ravenous animal. The next morning, however,
we were all greatly rejoiced to see him come running into
the yard, whence he directly hastened to the door of my
apartment, and, on being admitted, ran, with gestures expres-
sive of solicitude and eagerness, to a corner of the room
where guns were placed. We understood the hint, and, taking
the guns, followed him. He led us not by the road which
he himself had taken out of the wood, but by beaten paths
half round it, and then by several wood-cutters’ tracks in
different directions, to a thicket, where, following him a few
paces, we found the deer which he had killed. The dog
seems to have rightly judged that we should have been obliged
to make our way with much difficulty through almost the.
whole length of the wood, in order to come to the deer in a
straight direction, and he therefore led us a circuitous but