Chapter VIII: Part 8

But dog work is conducted in such various methods, some of which are so little removed from treading up the birds, that an idealist must hesitate to affirm that it is always preferable to forming line and walking up the game. There is an idea that the place to loose off the dogs is where game has congregated, or been driven into good cover, so that points may recur at every 10 yards. This is when the heavy shooting occurs, but it is not when the dog is most indispensable. The latter happens when there is no more than one covey to every 500 acres, and you have to find it before you have any sport. Some people say that under those circumstances they would prefer no sport. This, however, is a decadent view. We all of us appreciate sport as its difficulty increases, and a bag that was good enough for the great Duke of Wellington and for Colonel Peter Hawker ought to be good enough for any of us if we desire to feel ourselves sportsmen. The author has no word to urge against big bags except this: they cannot form a feature of everyday life for many, if for any of us, and sport can—provided the anxiety to make big bags because they are the fashion does not destroy our love of sport for its own sake. The writer confesses to being one of those selfish creatures who is supremely happy if he has satisfied his own critical spirit, even in such trifles as a day’s unwitnessed sport over dogs, the stalking of a blackcock or of a stag, the capture of a reluctant trout, or the killing of half a score of driven grouse out of a pack without a miss. He is well aware that either of these may be the harder to accomplish according to circumstances, and his pleasure is based on the absence of anything that might have been done better. Once in his life he sent a stag’s head to a taxidermist, and then changed his mind and would not have it home; and once or twice he has counted his kills during a day, but never made a written note of them. It has always appeared to the author that sport is its own reward, and that records are rather sad reading, and trophies create memories of the noble dead, and not always pleasant ones. It seems easier to take an interest in other people’s records than in one’s own, and to admire trophies that one did not victimise.

Surely a true spirit of sport may be the possession of one whose whole household idols are his gun and rifle, and whose total impedimenta are a portmanteau and gun-case. The greater one’s belongings, and the more one grows to care for them, the less ready one becomes to go far afield for sport, and the more one is inclined to cling to old memories, even without the assistance of trophies and private written records.

Feats of sport that can be forgotten are not worth remembering, for if enjoyment depended upon the size of the bag or the grandeur of a trophy, every day in which the old record was not beaten would be a day lost, whereas, in sport for its own sake alone, every triviality is supreme for the time being, and one is as keen for small things or great at sixty as at sixteen, although—and more is the pity—a great deal more self-critical.

The author has not ventured to trouble the possible reader with these personal reflections without a purpose—a purpose of making small things interesting, if that may be in an atmosphere of fashion and big bags.

An American prairie chicken and a quail are very small birds, and nowhere are they to be had in the abundance of Norfolk partridges or Yorkshire grouse. But they are as keenly pursued as any game in this country, and the writer was at least as gratified with small-bag successes as he has ever been with bigger bags in this country.

There are many reasons for the appreciation of even small bags of prairie chicken or quail. One is that the birds are for the most part for those who can find them. The actual shooting is so much the smaller matter. You find yourself on a prairie apparently as big and as flat as the Pacific Ocean. In the far distance you may observe a thin line of smoke as of a steamer hull down; you guess it at 10 miles, expecting to be told you have doubled the distance. Instead, you are informed it is the Trans-Continental railway train, which you know to be 40 miles away by the map. You may shoot to it, driving your waggon all the way, as the dogs work to the sky-lines on either side of you, never stopping until they get a point or come to the waggon for water. When they do point, you drive to them, it may be a mile, before taking the gun from its case and descending from the waggon. You judge of your dogs, not by their “treading up” the game, but by their sense in only hunting the habitat of game, and by the instinctive straightness of their course, first to the whereabouts of birds, and second to the game itself. With that 40 miles of unbeaten prairie in front, you are not reluctant to leave behind unbeaten ground that your dogs repudiate, especially as you see they do believe in what lies ahead, and you have reason to know that they are as reliable in their sense of “bird ground” as in their powers of smelling the game itself. The Americans value them for the former most uncommon quality, which they call “bird sense.” In practice it means both the greatest expenditure and economy of canine energy.

Change the locality to the South, in those winter months when all the Frozen North is mantled in white, and when the Ohio and the big lakes are solid ice. The autumn has passed, and Christmas has come and gone, before a shot is fired at the quail on many plantations. The brush has been too thick, to say nothing of the standing corn and the cotton, into which it is not “good form” to ride. You have exchanged your waggon for a saddle-horse. The flat prairie has given place to much broken and rolling ground, much natural covert, but distances are still wide; quail are plentiful for these parts. That is to say, there may be a brood to every 500 acres, perhaps to every 100 acres. As your dogs are sent off, you take care that they are not deceived as to the way you are riding. They will have no other indication as to your whereabouts in half an hour’s time, by when they will assuredly have been seen once or twice. Their sense of locality now becomes of as great importance as their bird sense. If they had not the former, they could either not go out of sight, or, doing so, would be lost. They may be the other side a hill and through a wood and half a mile away, but they can come straight back to you from any point, provided you ride straight. If you turn when they are out of sight, you defeat them, and they lose you. In such country as this it is not surprising that one school of shooters prefer what they call close ranging dogs, which, however, are not quarterers, but merely dogs of lesser courage, or those that fear to be lost. But, every other quality being equal, the field trials are won by the fastest stayers of the wide ranging variety, but such as do _not_ lose themselves and _do_ find game. In the Champion Stake for previous field trial winners that I assisted to judge in 1904, the rules insist on three-hour heats, and in practice competition demands these heats to be run at top speed throughout; but this speed in no sense means racing, but the most strenuous hunting for game.

Although the close ranging school condemn high ranging on various grounds, it is interesting to note that when they breed a litter of puppies the sires they use are those which have won these Champion Stakes. They are wise enough to know that, given the natural canine energy in their young dogs, they can turn it to advantage either in close or wide ranging, or merely in staying longer at a slower pace.

The broods of quail are not easy to find, because of the strenuous canine work required to cover so much ground, and the bird sense necessary to enable the dogs to select the right ground on which to hunt. When the brood is found and flushed, it scatters. Then any slow dog can find the scattered birds, and this is when the bag is filled; but it is not the valued canine quality, for the very reason that it is common property, whereas bird sense, sense of locality, and covey finding in the highest degree, are rare traits by comparison.

One day when the writer was shooting in Tennessee, his host had out three handlers of dogs, each mounted, and each working a brace of field trial winning setters at a time, with frequent changes. The sound of the horn was indicative of a point, and a long gallop had frequently to be taken to get to it. When the beat is in progress, the horses usually travel at a fox trot, or about six miles an hour. But even six crack dogs proved none too many for sport, so scarce are quail in some parts, and in this particular part they fairly swarmed in comparison with much of the Frozen North.

These high-couraged dogs that seem to take no hint from their handlers, but to think entirely for themselves, nevertheless have but to see their handler off his horse to take it for a signal to quarter the ground closely for scattered quail, or to hunt like a retriever for dead birds. Then upon the handler mounting again, their natures seem to change upon the instant, and they shoot off in a mighty hurry to make some cast that they have had “in mind” probably all the time they have been doing what is called “bird work,” as tamely as and obediently as any English field trialer.

Some people look upon this riding to pointers and setters as new, and think these dogs were never intended for any such purpose. On the other hand, it appears probable that they could not have invented their bird sense and sense of locality, which are doubtless instinctive and hereditary. It is the fashion to think our ancestors were slow in their movements. So they were, no doubt, when they could not be quick, but others besides Colonel Hawker knew the advantage of bustling along after partridges by means of a shooting pony and quick pointers; and others besides Joe Manton have found that “going slow” was not the royal road to success, nor buttermilk as good for pointers as for points. It was not fair of the Colonel to prepare certain failure by means of buttermilk. Used in this way, the shooting pony in conjunction with pointers and setters is not often seen now in England, but it certainly was very common when the ridable portions of the country were mostly shot by the assistance of those dogs. It is probable, therefore, that this American form of shooting, brought to perfection there by means of field trials, is really more like English shooting at the dawn of the nineteenth century than our own shooting over dogs is like it.

But whether that is so or not, the writer is certain that this strenuous work is the right method to maintain the generations of the dog, and that there would be no sense in the theory of evolution if these Champions were not the best dogs to breed from. At any rate, although the Americans owe to us all their breeds of pointers and setters, no recent importations have been able to win there, and, on the other hand, the first American cross-breds to be brought over have annexed some of our field trials. The reference is to Mr. A. Hall’s Guiniard Shot and Dash, victors in a brace stake in 1905, and good enough with a little luck, and in the hands of any but a novice, to have beaten the best running in our trials that year, although they were only four days over the age of puppies when they competed against old dogs.

Another charming method of shooting is found still farther South, in Georgia, where there are vast areas of pine forests and quail in them.

Here it is common to _drive_ through the pathless woods. The waggons are often driven over a fallen tree that to English eyes seems to bar the way. It is an article of faith that if the horse can get over, the buggy will follow.

There is naturally a limit to one’s range of vision amongst straight stems, although there is no brushwood to interfere, and the way free rangers when upon the point are found in these woods, as also in the brushwood outside, is by means of other dogs; there may be half a dozen hunting together, and several spare animals in the buggy. If careful watching does not discover the last direction taken by the dog on point, it will do so of one or other of the backing dogs, and, failing that, another is turned out to look for the out-of-sight brigade. January sport is like driving in the English pine districts on an early September day, and shooting partridges in the woods (for the “quail” or “bob-whites” are partridges, and not quail) and the bracing freshness of the pine-laden air has, with good reason, caused New York fashion to winter in the pine districts of Georgia, of which Thomasville is a good specimen, for sport and health.

Since writing the above, a puppy the author selected in America in 1904, then eight months old and unentered, has beaten all the pointers and setters at the grouse trials on Lord Home’s beautiful Lanarkshire moors, in August 1906. This is Captain H. Heywood Lonsdale’s Ightfield Rob Roy, and very fully confirms a view expressed above, that the severest tests are the best for keeping up a breed. This dog comes of the remarkably in-bred race referred to in the chapter on English setters, and it need not be mentioned further, except to say that the pure breed as first-rate performers came to an end in this country owing to in-breeding, without at the same time selecting as severely for vitality as the field trial system does in America. Selection has negatived the well-known influence of in-breeding in everything except in size. This pure bred in-bred race was originated over there by the author’s selection for Americans of dogs all descended from those six setters named in the chapter on English setters, and picked and recommended from the kennels of the late Mr. Tom Statter, the late Mr. Laverack, the late Mr. Barclay Field, Mr. Purcell Llewellin, and others. In the exported originals they were Laverack and Rhœbe crosses, like Mr. Barclay Field’s Rock on the one hand; Laveracks, like Mr. Laverack’s Victress (Dash and Moll); Laverack and Rhœbe crosses like the late Mr. Statter’s Rob Roy; Duke and Rhœbe crosses bred by Mr. Statter, of which strain two big bitches were sent out; and others of the three crosses, Duke, Rhœbe, and Laveracks, like Mr. Llewellin’s Druid and his Count Noble. The demand for them arose in consequence of some letters the author had written in the American sporting press referring to the superiority of these three strains over any others of that period. The author even ventured to give them a title, namely “the Field Trial breed,” and that was the sole reason why they were kept uncrossed with other blood in America. It is this uncrossed blood that is represented in Captain Heywood Lonsdale’s Rob Roy, but that this race of in-breds is still valuable (and in America by far the most valuable) is owing to those three-hour stamina trials by which the sires are selected. It was because of the severity of those tests that the writer felt sure that he could select in America superior material to any our breakers have to work upon. That idea was not very popular when it was first stated some five years ago; but those who had taken the opposite view were generous when they saw Rob Roy’s performance, and, as one of them remarked, they “took it all back.” The crosses of this energetic strain cannot fail to improve our setters, and if we could only import the severity of selection of the best winners by further more severe stamina trials, we should not be long behind America. There the breed has a Stud Book registration to itself, for which any cross whatever disqualifies. They are registered as “Llewellin setters,” which was for some reason substituted for the “Field Trial breed” which the author had given. In conversation they are spoken of in America as “straight-bred,” and in England the best designation is “the American straight-bred setters,” since it is necessary to know that we are not speaking of the same breed as Mr. Llewellin’s recent field trial representatives, which are crossed, and could not be registered in the American Stud Book as Llewellin setters or straight-bred ones. About thirty-five field trials for pointers and setters are held every year in America, and honours rarely, if ever, fall on any other race except setters, either straight-bred or having 90 per cent. of the blood, and on the pointers.

THE IRISH SETTER

Fashion has made the Irish setter a red dog, whereas there used to be many more index dogs of Erin red-and-white than red. Fashion in this case has been the dog show, but if that had been all the result of its influence the author would have been content. It is the Irishmen who are most concerned, and the fact that the Irish setter is the worst colour in the world to see in a Scotch mist can be well understood not to matter in Irish atmosphere and manners of thinking. Between 1870 and 1880 the dog shows had attracted most of the handsomest dogs in Ireland, and many of these were very good workers.

From time to time an Irish setter has been good enough to compete with success at English field trials, and although on occasion such an animal has carried all before it in its stake, neither in England nor America has one of the breed ever won a Champion Stake, so that probably it will be considered fair to say that poor competition has brought the Irish to the front when by chance they have come out first at field trials. The author has seen and shot over many charming red setters, but he has never seen a really great dog of that breed—that is, not a dog in the same class with the pointers Drake and Romp’s Baby.

The best Irish setter the writer ever shot over had the peculiar luck of always finding birds when, by the manners of other dogs, there appeared to be none about. Many a time has a bad day been redeemed by letting off this beautiful red dog, a son of the field trial winner Plunket. To some good judges of dog’s work the field trials appeared to be at the mercy of this setter; but he had a peculiarity often to be found in those of his race—he would only hunt for blood, and consequently out of the shooting season he was as useless as an ill-broken, careless puppy. He would run up birds without appearing to smell them before they rose, or to see them afterwards. Instead of waiting on your every wish, as he did in the shooting season, he took no interest whatever in the proceedings, and you could not cheat him into believing business was meant by the use of blank or any other cartridges. It is easy to defend such a characteristic in individual or race on the ground that it shows their sense. So it does, no doubt, but it also shows that the questing instinct is weak in them, and there are good reasons for preferring it to be very strong. The breaking season is the spring, and a dog that will not hunt for all it is worth then cannot be broken. As a matter of fact, only few Irish setters ever are highly finished. More than half of those that have come to field trials have been unsafe in the abode of a hare. At the same time, those that are taken to spring field trials hunt well enough, but of course these are a very small proportion.

In popular opinion the greatest fault is that the race carry low heads; at the same time, this carriage does _not_ invariably mean bad “noses.” The writer has seen an Irish setter turn a complete somersault over its own nose, which it ran against a stiff furrow of a fallow field; but this one had a good nose, although not the very best. The author was judging one year at the National Field Trials with Mr. George Davies, of Retriever fame, when Colonel Cotes’ fast and good pointer Carl was sent off against an Irish setter belonging to Mr. Cheetham. The latter never lifted his nose in hunting or in drawing to game more than would miss the buttercups, but nevertheless, from behind, he again and again found partridges that the other dog, much nearer, had failed to detect. Carl was very fast and the Irish setter very slow, but the former was beaten pointless.

There is a fiction that Irish setters are faster than other dogs, but this is not the case. It is much more usual to see them out-paced, as in the above-named instance. It may be that they generally have so merry a stern action that they look to be bustling, when in fact their actual getting over the ground is not fast. Their low noses cause them to take very narrow parallels when they are careful, so that if they are judged by the ground they actually cover or beat they are usually of less capacity than their only moderate speed suggests. They ought to last well at the pace they go, but although stamina is said to be another of their strong points over English setters, the author has known many of the latter breed that could do more work than any Irish setter he has seen. These have included some of the best Irish setter winners at field trials. But years ago there were Irish dogs that could go a good pace and stay well. They were bigger dogs than those which win at shows now, and looked more like workmen. It is to be feared that breeding for show points has evolved a bustling and busy rather than a business-like race. They are now smaller, shorter, especially in the quarters, and more upright in the shoulder, than the best of the old sort. There is not now anything at all like Palmerston and Kate, winners at Birmingham about the same time. The last-named was probably as well made and as setter-like as any dog could be, and to compare the present show setters with her is like comparing a polo pony with a Derby winner. At the spring field trials of 1906 only one Irish setter was entered, and that one was far from being even moderate in its work.

There may be dogs of the old type hidden away in Ireland, and if so they are much more worthy of attention than those which for so long have been bred for show points. The best Irish setters the author has seen for the last ten years are those of Mr. Cheetham. This gentleman kept them for grouse shooting in the Lews, and as his shooting was late in the year, when the heat had departed, they were admirably suited for the purpose.

The opinions given are of course based upon comparisons of the breed with the very best of other races of setters and pointers. There is one point, however, in which the Irish setters seem to be the inferiors of all others—namely, the large proportion of inferior animals bred, compared with the small number up to a fair English setter working standard. This remark has reference to the natural ability, and not at all to the difficulty of breaking the breed. The latter charge against them is true also, but only because their excitement is greater than their love of questing. Mostly they would rather chase a hare than point a bird. It has been said of them that they want breaking afresh every year, but that has not been the experience of the author, who has invariably found that a thoroughly broken dog is broken for life, of whatever breed it may happen to be.

Irish breaking, however, has not always been very thorough.

It has sometimes been said of the _old_ dogs of Ireland that they required half a day’s work before they were steady. In that case, they would require similar renewal of breaking every day, and the author has made the observation that such dogs are too wild all the morning and too tired all the afternoon to be a pleasure to shoot over.

But they are not all hard to break; some of those which are not too excitable are very collie-like in their intuition of your wishes and their anxiety to obey them.

It is noteworthy that the Irish have always held their field trials in the autumn.

An old writer says that the English claim theirs as the true English spaniel, whereas the Irish claim theirs to be the real true English spaniel. This is not very informative. The dogs alluded to were of course both setters, but of what colour we are not told in respect of the Irish dog.

The author shot over the celebrated field trial winner Plunket for several seasons and ran him at field trials, but after he had turned two years he was little use in the spring, whereas he won well in the autumn, when game was shot to his points. In this he was similar to a much better dog, his own son, already referred to. Plunket was a fast dog, and his boldness and beauty in going up to game was quite remarkable, as he would draw up to birds at racing speed, as if he meant catching them, but stopped suddenly and in time. Then, when they ran away from his point, the moment he was ordered to draw on he would again dash forward, and again locate his game with equally sudden points. But the majority of good English setters at that time could out-stay him, and particularly the Laverack setters Countess and Nellie, with which he often worked, could have killed him. Mr. O’Callaghan’s setters were rarely good enough to go to field trials, and although two of them won there, they were very lucky to do so. Perhaps these dogs deteriorated less than any other breed that were bred for show, or perhaps it would be safer to say they declined in work slower than others, but there is no doubt that they were on the down grade, not only in work but in true setter appearance. That they were as _pretty_ as any dogs could be at one time is freely admitted, but they had lost three-parts of the scope of Palmerston and Kate, and their character of work was spaniel-like rather than setter-like—in fact, just what their looks led one to expect they would prove to be.

Unfortunately, the author has never seen the Irish field trials: the reason is that the English pointers have usually proved better than the Irish setters, so that there seemed to be nothing novel to see by going. But it is very difficult to believe that the show Irish setters that usually represent the breed at English trials are the best workers of the race. The character of the breed when the author first saw it at work in the sixties was distinctly setter-like, and not spaniel-like.

There has been a great deal of controversy upon how the dark-red colour arose. Mr. John King, who knew more of Irish setters than any other man known to the author, affirmed that red-and-white was the original colour, and the general opinion was that those of the last-named markings were the most easy to break. All the most setter-like Irish that have come before the author have had more or less white upon them, and as colour certainly denotes blood or origin, and the manner of hunting of the whole-red dogs is spaniel-like, it does not seem to be unlikely that the springer spaniel, the colour of a blood bay horse without a white hair spoken of by a Suffolk parson in the middle of the eighteenth century, may have had a good deal to do with the origin of the red Irish setter. At any rate, no other setters or spaniels of the colour can be traced in the early history of what was then the English spaniel, or the setter.

The same writer says that the English spaniels (setters) were of two colours, “black-and-tan” and “red-and-white,” so that there is another possible origin of the whole-coloured red dogs. Black-and-tan setters often produced a red dog, but not the Irish dark rich red. This red puppy in the litter might have arisen from an Irish cross, but, on the other hand, it might have been a blend with the lemon-and-white coloured English setters, or the result of puppies following the markings of one ancestor and the colour of another. Those that the author bred from black-and-tan parents had no dark hairs to suggest their origin, but neither had they the rich chestnut of the Irish setter. The writer’s experience of breeding dogs inclines him to the belief that the spaniel-like tendency of the breed, now that it is selected for all-red colour, is proof not only of its spaniel but probably of a springer origin. Their excitement, their merry low-carried sterns, and their noses on the ground, speak like an open book to one who has bred and watched the breeding of all races of setters for forty years, and has assured himself that selection for colour is the automatic selection of character usually found with that colour.

The late Mr. Laverack was of opinion that crossing his black-and-whites with the lemon-and-whites of the same litter was in fact equivalent to cross breeding. However, he lived to introduce red dogs in his breed, so that the former kind of crossing does not do everything. There is no doubt that size and fertility suffer by this method, but however often the incestuous breeding is repeated such a thing as a blend of the two colours was almost unknown—that is to say, when a liver-and-white one did, very rarely, make its appearance, Mr. Laverack himself traced it to a former cross with the Edmund Castle breed of liver-and-white setters. There was always a difference other than colour between the lemon-and-white and the black-and-white brothers and sisters—a difference which suggested two distinct sources of origin of not at all related breeds. Consequently, if the red-and-white has not been entirely eliminated from the Irish setter, and if they sometimes do revert, the author would expect the reversions to be more setter-like and less spaniel-like than the present show Irish setters, and to be more like Dr. Stone’s Dash and the Kate and Palmerston already mentioned.

Since writing the above, the author remembers that on one occasion he bred from an Irish dog and a black-and-tan bitch, with the result that the puppies were liver-coloured. Yet when two black-and-tans were bred together thirty-five years ago, there were usually a couple of red puppies in the litter showing neither liver, black, or black tinge, or even dark-red colours. This does not support the theory of a black-and-tan origin of the whole colour.

The collie-like sense of the Irish setter has been referred to, and a case of the kind may be of interest. In 1873 the author was shooting along the shores of a loch in Inverness-shire, hunting a brace of setters, one of which was a red Irish puppy. A grouse was killed that fell out into the lake, there about a mile wide and several miles long. The dogs dropped to shot, and there lay while the party waited to make sure that the wind would not bring in the grouse, for we had no retriever or any setter that had ever retrieved. It became evident at the end of a few minutes that the grouse was slowly drifting away, and the order was given to continue the beat, leaving the bird to its fate. But the young red setter was no sooner on its legs than it darted straight to the lake, jumped in, swam to the grouse, brought it to land and there dropped it, shook itself, and started to hunt for more live birds.

That was the first and also the last bird it ever retrieved, although it was constantly encouraged to make further attempts. Of course this looks like reason, but that is questionable. At any rate, it was startlingly smart, and about as unexpected a canine performance as could be conceived.

Another of the breed was so smart in finding wounded game that he ended as a retriever in Yorkshire grouse driving, and was said to be better than several retrievers, although he never lifted a bird, but merely put a foot on the grouse and waited to be relieved, when he would go quickly and straight to the next wounded bird, and so on until all were found.

It is probable that even wild grouse do not often fly from a dog unless they associate him with the presence of man. When using a parti-coloured team of black-white-and-tan setters with some lemon-and-white dogs, the author has noticed that wild grouse soon got to expect the man when they saw the dogs, and he has found that by using a red dog then, the birds behave differently, probably mistaking the Irish setter for a Scotch fox. At any rate, when they ought to have been very wild according to locality and season, grouse have been noticed to treat a red dog with a certain amount of resentment and walk away from him, flicking their tails as they move, plainly expecting the rush, and unwilling to fly before it came. What they obviously did not expect was that there was a man with a gun.

THE BLACK-AND-TAN SETTER

A sporting parson of the middle of the eighteenth century tells us that the English setters were then of two colours, red-and-white and black-and-tan. Whether the author meant to say black-white-and-tan seems a little doubtful, but in any case there were black-white-and-tan setters long before this, as is evidenced in one of Dürer’s pictures, and this Flemish artist died in 1528. When this picture was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1891, it escaped the notice of the author in spite of several visits, but Mr. Rawdon Lee describes the dog illustrated as a black-white-and-tan setter, less spaniel-like and more on the leg than the modern show setter. Then, half a century later, our earliest writer on the dog mentions the setter, or index, as a distinct dog from the spaniel, and at the same time throws doubt upon the Spanish origin of the latter. It was in 1570 that Dr. Caius of Cambridge wrote upon the dog; unfortunately he appears to have known nothing except the duties of the setter, for he does not describe either its origin, its colour, or appearance.

It has been said that the Duke of Gordon got the black-and-tan colour by crossing with the collie, but the majority of the Gordon Castle dogs were black-white-and-tan, and some were red-and-white. That is to say, they may have been and probably were the colours that the eighteenth-century writer meant when he described those of the “English spaniel”—that is, the English setter.

About 1873 the author had a long talk with the late Lord Lovat and his keeper, Bruce, at the kennels above the famous Beauly pools, that the same good sportsman rendered for ever famous by his wonderful kills of salmon.

It was an article of faith at Beaufort, where the kennel book had been kept up since the end of the eighteenth century, that the old Duke’s Gordon setters and their own living setters were identical in blood and appearance. They were bred together, and after the Duke’s death this inter-breeding was kept up between Lord Lovat’s and the other kennels which had the blood. One of the principal of these was that of Lord Rosslyn, in Fifeshire. But for some time this latter exchange of blood had been dropped, because Lord Rosslyn’s dogs had been crossed with the bloodhound to get nose, or so Bruce told the author.

What it did get was colour—that is, a bright black-and-tan without white; whereas those dogs that were black-and-tan in the Lovat kennel had white feet and fronts, but a very large majority had body white as well. At that period those black-and-tan setters that went to the shows were of two distinct types: one lot were light-made, active dogs, and the other, including the descendants of Rev. T. Pearce’s Kent and those of Lord Rosslyn’s blood, were very heavy in formation. Kent either had no pedigree or a doubtful one, but was all the fashion, and whereas a first cross with him was of benefit, in-breeding on all sides to him has rendered the black-and-tans of to-day lumbering, and so constitutionally weak that the exhibitors have been unable to keep the breed going, although they have neglected to demand working ability in favour of the points they adore. In the sixties and early seventies the Rev. Mr. Hutchinson, of Malmesbury, wrote a good deal about the lighter strain of black-and-tan setters which he and the late Sir Fred Milbank had constantly used together in the Lews. The author tried these dogs, and although they were certainly built for racing, they unfortunately could not race. Their breeder believed nothing could live with them, but when they came to be measured with others (and that is the only way to be sure) they were not better in speed than the heavy Kent and Rosslyn dogs, and not a patch upon the best Irish setters, which, again, were inferior in speed and stamina to the best English dogs. In 1870 the author entered a lot of his own breeding at the National Field Trials. They were reported by Mr. J. H. Walsh, then Editor of the _Field_, to have done “faultless” work, but were slow by comparison with some of the other dogs, and although that gentleman did not think they were beaten, disappointment at losing did not disguise from their owner that they were out-classed. From that time to quite recently no pure bred black-and-tan setter has had much of a look in at field trials, until Mr. Isaac Sharp came out with Stylish Ranger. But between the exquisite breaking of Mr. Sharp and the good nose of his dog they managed to get in front of all they met, at a period when field trial dogs were at a rather low ebb, and when in the judges’ opinions breaking counted for more than work. If those opinions had obtained in 1870, the author might have won all before him with his black-and-tans, but in that case he would probably never have acquired the knowledge of the infinitely better.

This first field trial attempt was made with the heavy Kent and Lord Rosslyn sort. The author bred several litters from direct crosses of Lord Rosslyn’s best dogs. His second attempt to win field trials was made with the light-made sort of setter from the Lews; but results were always the same. Still, although those results were true, the black-and-tan breed are never seen to advantage in the low country or in the hot atmosphere of central England. They become twice the dogs late in the season and on the high grounds of Scotland, and their size and long legs are not a hindrance in deep old heather. Moreover, they almost break themselves, or used to, thirty-six years ago, and where hills have moderate angles and shooters interminable patience, they are comfortable dogs to shoot over. Like the Irish, they do not mind wet and cold, and many of them have good noses and carry high heads. But they were different in character from English and Irish dogs. Once, and only once, the author has seen a setter draw down to a brook at some scent, apparently from the other side, but instead of crossing to investigate, on this occasion the dog stood up on his hind legs to get a higher current of the tainted air, and then, having made sure in that way, crossed the brook and pointed on the rising ground beyond. This performance was accomplished by one of the light-made black-and-tans of the Lews blood before spoken of. What any other breed of setters would have done would have been to swim the brook and try the other side in the first instance, and this incident sufficiently explains the difference of temperaments of the black-and-tan setters from those of other races. In other words, the wisdom of the black-and-tans is partly born of weakness of the flesh, for although bigger dogs than most setters, they are not able to carry the extra weight.

In the first Bala field trials the Marquis of Huntly had a son of Kent which, according to the points awarded by the judges, came out first. But the judges did not follow their points, and gave the award elsewhere. The author did not see that trial, but it is noteworthy because it was the last time a black-and-tan of pure blood seemed to have a chance of victory over the best of the period until the time of Stylish Ranger. It is also noteworthy because the dogs beaten, on the ground of bad breaking, afterwards proved towers of strength at the stud, whereas the victors did not. The beaten included Mr. Tom Statter’s pointer Major and Mr. Armstrong’s English setter Duke. Probably these were the two most potent influences of setter and pointer breeding that ever lived.

One incident in the breeding of black-and-tan setters did very much to make them for a time the most popular breed. It was this. Much controversy having arisen as to the setter character of Kent, a great dog-show winner, his owner asked the Editor of the _Field_ to select a puppy and run it at the field trials. This was done, and the puppy came out well, and actually beat the celebrated Duke on one occasion. This was naturally accepted as proof of the pure breeding of Kent and the correctness of his type. What it probably ought to have proved was that Rex (the young dog) was better than others, because he followed in instinct the pure bred side of his parentage, and received vitality from a not very remote outside cross of blood. Four years later, Duke was sire, or grandsire, of the winners of first, second, third, and fourth, at the National Field Trials, and the black-and-tans had practically ceased competition at those events.

The author may say of black-and-tans, as he has of the red Irish setters, that he never saw a great dog of the breed, although he has seen many good ones. Probably the best that ever ran in public was Mr. Sharp’s Stylish Ranger, but he would not have beaten the 1870 brigade on anything but breaking, or rather handiness; for Mr. Sharp could put him anywhere by a wave of the finger. It is probable that there are better black-and-tan setters kept in Scotch kennels for work than those which go to dog shows, and since Ranger’s withdrawal and exportation they have ceased again to appear at field trials.

They have been too long bred without back ribs, with light loins, with clumsy shoulders and big heads, to induce the belief that by selection they can be improved. But they might be placed on a much superior level by means of a cross and selection afterwards. Mr. Sharp’s celebrity was bred by Mr. Chapman, who is, or was, a dog-show man. It is necessary to say this in order to be quite fair to dog shows; but any attempt to improve the breed by crossing would be most likely to succeed by a cross on a base of black-and-tan setter that had been kept for several generations for work only. The show points valued for this breed are really not setter points at all. In considering the possibility of improving, it is always necessary to know the history of a breed, and that of the black-and-tan is undoubtedly indicated above. There is evidence in Mr. Thomson Gray’s _Dogs of Scotland_, published in 1891, to show that the origin of the Gordon setters was as suggested above—that is to say, black-and-tan and lemon- or red-and-white, just what the old Suffolk sportsman said of English setters fifty years before he wrote in 1775. Mr. Gray says there were also black-white-and-tans and liver-and-white dogs.

But the “Gordon setter” never meant what those setters originated from, but, on the contrary, what they became under the last Duke of Gordon, and this we have ample evidence, from Beaufort Castle, from the Duke of Richmond and Gordon’s kennel, and from Lord Cawdor’s strain, to prove was black-white-and-tan, and that was also the colour of the dogs at the dispersal of the Duke of Gordon’s kennel in 1837. So that it is a mistake to call black-and-tan setters Gordons, for although the Duke’s celebrated strain was partly originated from dogs of that colour, so also were all other English setters. Gervaise Markham, in _Hunger’s Prevention; or the whole art of fowling by Land and Water_, in 1665, speaks of black-and-fallow dogs as the hardest to endure labour, so that there is no doubt about the existence of black-and-tan setters before the Duke of Gordon started to pay attention to setter breeding. There is also no doubt that the Duke’s dogs were bred and crossed in colours until they became black-white-and-tan. The author has shown how the black-and-tan colour was restored in the Gordon of the present time by the bloodhound cross, and it only remains to say that the reason the black-and-tan colour is now accepted as that of the Gordon came about from the early classification of the Birmingham Dog Show, where true Gordons were placed in the English setter classes, and all kinds of black-and-tans in the class for Gordons, although some at least, probably many, of that colour were not Gordons. That the bloodhound cross destroyed the merits of the various races of that colour may be gathered from two facts. One was that the first dog show was won by a black-and-tan, and the other that the first field trial was also won by a black-and-tan. No doubt both these dogs were descended on one side or other of their pedigree from the Duke of Gordon’s dogs, but it is doubtful whether they got their black-and-tan from that side. Their pedigrees can be looked up in the first volume of the Stud Book. But if they are read by the light of a pedigree of a dog that belonged to the author and was of much the same breeding, a pedigree which also occurs in that volume, it will be seen that they might be Gordons only so far as they inherited black-white-and-tan blood, and were of other breeds so far as they inherited black-and-tan blood. To make what is intended clear, the entry is quoted:—

“Bruce—Mr. G. Teasdale-Buckell’s, Wellesley Hall, Ashby-de-la-Zouch: breeder, owner, born 1869 (dead). Pedigree: By Lord Rosslyn’s Rokeby (No. 1622) out of Blaze, by Old Reuben out of Belle, by Kent (No. 1600) out of Duchess, by Nell out of Stella, by Lord Chesterfield’s Regent (purchased at the Duke of Gordon’s sale) out of a Marquis of Anglesea bitch: Regent, black-white-and-tan, was by Old Regent out of the Duke of Gordon’s Ellen.”

Duchess was a light-made black-and-tan, and her dam was by the undoubted black-white-and-tan Gordon for which Lord Chesterfield gave 72 gs. to Tattersall’s at the Duke’s dispersal sale, and her mother was a Marquis of Anglesea bitch. Where did the black-and-tan colour of Duchess come from? The reply is, not from Stella at all, but from Ned (mistakenly entered as Nell) in the pedigree quoted; and he got his colour from Mr. F. Burdett’s Brougham, which there is nothing to show was a Gordon at all, although he was descended from black-and-tans on one side at least. This same Brougham became the ancestor of the most famous breed of English setters—namely, the descendants of Mr. Tom Statter’s Rhœbe, winners of hundreds of field trials in this country and America, and which are still the best setters there are.

But when the breed became crossed with the Lord Rosslyn’s and Kent strains of black-and-tan blood, it practically ceased to be the setter at all in a very few generations. That is why any attempted revival of the black-and-tans ought to be based on dogs the ancestors of which for generations have been good enough to keep for work, and with no ulterior objects. But it would be an up-hill business, for nothing in breeding is more certain than that colour is indicative of blood, and to select for black-and-tans would be to select the wrong type a hundred times in a hundred and one.

On the other hand, if any of the old light-made black-and-tan dogs, with dish faces instead of hound profiles, could be found, the black-and-tan colour is so prepotent that they might have any cross of parti-coloured strain and yet perhaps not show it in the colour in the first generation. Although blackand-tan is a much more prepotent colour than any parti-colour, it is not so much so as the whole colours, black and red. Probably it cannot be produced by breeding these two last-named together. Then facts seem to indicate that the ancestors of our setters were some whole-coloured races or black-and-tan dogs of some wild or domestic kinds.

After grouse have got wild to a team of light-coloured dogs, some shots may often be had over a black-and-tan setter. Possibly the birds mistake the setter for a collie, and the gunner, if suitably dressed in imitation, for the shepherd. There are occasions when, on the contrary, the grouse are more afraid of the sheep-dog than any other, and this may not always mean that the shepherd, like his dog, is a poacher.

It has been said that a black-and-tan is a bad colour to see on the moors, but this is not so. No sportsman would use a black coat for shooting, because it is more conspicuous than any other, and what is true of the man’s coat is true of the dog’s colour.

RETRIEVERS AND THEIR BREAKING

Retrievers are now by far the most popular gun-dogs in this country, whereas in America they are considered useless, with the exception of a few that are kept exclusively for duck shooting, and which are called Chesapeake Bay dogs, and are a distinct breed from any we have in England. Ninety-nine-hundredths of the work of English retrievers is on land, and although a retriever can hardly be called perfect unless he will hunt in water, and get a winged duck if that be possible, yet it is absolutely impossible to have a dog that is perfect in everything (or so it appears), and therefore a shooter exercises a wise moderation in his demands when he insists on perfection in one department rather than moderation in all.

People purchase and use retrievers for either one or more of several reasons:—

1. Because they like a dog.

2. Because they like to collect more game than they shoot.

3. Because they do not like to leave wounded things to die in
prolonged pain.

4. Because when they are out of the house they like to have something
that they can order about.

5. Because the dead game that can be seen is easy for the dog to
retrieve.

6. Because the wounded game that cannot be seen is difficult for men
to pick up.

7. Because a handsome retriever gives a finish almost equal to neat
spats to a shooter’s turn-out.

8. Because it is much easier to gain credit for sportsmanship at a dog
show than in the field and covert.

9. Because there is a demand for stud services at remunerative fees.

MR. JOHN COTES’ IMPORTED LABRADOR TIP, FROM AN OLD PICTURE AT WOODCOTE

The dog was whelped in 1832 and presented by Mr. Portman to his owner.
From this dog is descended the field trial winner, Col. C. J. Cotes’
Pitchford Marshal, and his Monk, an intermediate generation. This
dog is more like the dogs at Netherby 45 years ago than is the
present race of Labradors.
]

COL. C. J. COTES’ PITCHFORD MARSHAL. SEVERAL TIMES A FIELD TRIAL
WINNER
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