"Spaniels get very knowing in working to the gun after a few months, and it is astonishing what efforts they will make to manœuvre the game out to the shooter. I have seen numberless instances of this, particularly in hedgerow shooting, when I have frequently seen a clever old dog, on winding game, not make a rush at it, which would have had the effect of sending it out on the other side, but pop through the fence and push it out to you. This, as I have said, is only acquired by experience; and a young, vigorous Spaniel will sometimes push up the game, irrespective of lending any aid to the gun. A really good Spaniel, even when he is busy questing and bustling about, should always have an eye to the gun, and to work to it instead of for himself and his own gratification and amusement. You cannot well begin too early to train young Spaniels to get their noses down and to hunt close; to work thoroughly every bit of ground and every hole and corner that can possibly shelter a head of game. This is what the Spaniel is required to do when he is grown up; and in order to inculcate this habit in him, and to discourage him in what he is so prone to do--namely, go ahead--you should begin by flinging small bits of meat or boiled liver into small patches of turnips in a garden, or small patches of thick bushes, or any kind of covert that will cause him to seek for it with his nose, and not with his eye. By no means enter your young Spaniels to rabbits if you can avoid it; they take to them naturally when they get the chance, and there is no fear of their not having the opportunity soon enough. Enter them to winged game, by all means, and for this purpose get an old cock partridge, cut one wing, and put him into a small patch of thick covert. "Never take young Spaniels into large or thick coverts where they can get away from under your eye. Confine your working ground to small bits of covert, patches of turnips, bushes, bits of gorse--any thing, in fact, where you will be likely to have thorough control over them, and where they are in reach of an attendant; whom you should always have with you to turn them to your whistle. I have found it a first-rate plan to take them out on the sides of rivers and ponds, where there are lots of moorhens, and plenty of sedge and rushes; let them hunt in the rushes till they are tired, and a morning's work of this kind will do them more good than anything I know of. They soon become fond of the work; it teaches them to work close, and they are perfectly under the control of yourself and assistant.