22 MODERN TRAINING. 



endless toil to store wealth, which was considered the object 

 of life, not to make life nobler and more enjoyable. The 

 renewed vigor of body and mind; the broader humanity; 

 the training of eye and nerve; the beauties of nature, were 

 all considered as vagaries ; but these narrow beliefs have 

 been swept away by general progress and enlightenment, 

 and they only exist as shadows of the past. 



It is strange that such companionable and valuable animals 

 should have been neglected so long ; stranger still that hav- 

 ing such a wide and even distribution they should be so 

 imperfectly understood by mankind. Every intelligent act 

 was commonly ascribed to the impulses of instinct, and 

 reason was not considered for a moment as being, first or 

 last, a principle. Oftentimes men who could not solve the 

 common material problems of life could, without the slight- 

 est hesitation, mental effort or previous study, decisively 

 decide intricate psychological problems to their own infinite 

 satisfaction; occasionally a bit more of the same kind of 

 instinct would be beneficial if it had a wider existence in the 

 scale of animal organisms. 



Three distinct breeds of setters are recognized in this 

 country, namely, the English setter, the Irish setter, and 

 the Gordon setter. 



The latter, as compared to his aboriginal parents, is a 

 Gordon merely in name, he being so largely mixed with out- 

 crosses on other breeds that the alien blood predominates. 

 However, it may be mentioned that many years ago the 

 Gordon was highly prized in England for his merit. The 

 breed having long been owned by the Dukes of Gordon, it 

 thus derived its name. Since the institution of field trials 

 and the consequent more exacting demands of sportsmen in 

 respect to working capabilities, the Gordon, so called, has 

 constantly met with disfavor and progressively degenerated. 

 Except by courtesy the miscellaneous scrub character of the 



