To ensure good sport, the shooter must be provided with good dogs. However _abundant_ game may be, there can be no real sport _without_ good; and however _scarce_ game may be, a good day’s sport is attainable _with_ good dogs, by a person who feels what sport is, and who does not look upon filling the game-bag and loading the keepers with game, as the sole end and aim of the sportsman’s occupation. The mere act of killing game no more constitutes sport, than the jingling of rhyme constitutes poetry. Since, then, good dogs contribute to good sport, the shooter should be careful to whom he entrusts the breaking of them. Bad habits, by dogs, as well as by bipeds, are sooner acquired than got rid of. If it suit his convenience, the shooter should frequently accompany the breakers when practising his dogs: he should direct them to make use of few words, and those words should be the same that _he_ is in the habit of using. A multiplicity of directions only serves to puzzle a dog, as a person’s speaking Irish, Scotch, and Welsh alternately would perplex a Spaniard! In common with other sports, shooting has a vocabulary of its own. We subjoin a list of some of the words made use of by breakers and sportsmen to dogs, many of them being anything but euphonious to the unaccustomed ear. _To-ho_ spoken in an under tone, when the dog is ranging, is a warning to him that he is close upon game, and is a direction to him to stand. There is no necessity for using it to a dog that knows his business. Spoken in a peremptory manner, it is used to make the dog crouch when he has run up game, or been otherwise in fault. _Down-charge_, or _down-to-charge_, is to make the dog crouch while the shooter charges. _Take-heed_, and _be-careful_, are used when the dog ranges over ground where it is customary to find birds. _Take-heed_, is a word of correction; _be-careful_, of encouragement. The former is used by way of caution or notice to prevent the dog putting up birds by running over the ground too fast; the latter is likewise a caution, but used when the dog beats slowly or carelessly. _Back_, is used to make a dog follow at heel. _’Ware fence_, is used to prevent dogs passing a fence before the gun. The dog should never, on any account, leave an enclosure until its master has left it. _’Ware_ or _beware_, is used to rate a dog for giving chase to a hare, birds, or cattle, or for pointing larks, or approaching too near the heels of a horse. _Seek_, is a direction to the dog to look for a dead or wounded bird, hare, or rabbit. _Dead_, is to make a dog relinquish his hold of dead or wounded game. The dog should not touch a dead bird, but should retain possession of wounded game until it is taken from him; for should he suffer a bird that is only slightly wounded to disengage himself from his grasp, another _seek_ becomes necessary, and the bird is either lost, or despoiled of its plumage by the catching and re-catching.