BREAKING AND HANDLING. 23 



breed hardly entitles it to the distinction of a true breed, if 

 race type, numbers, pure blood and power of reproduction 

 true to race characteristics are any criteria by which to 

 determine it. So much is it degenerated in these properties 

 that it is hardly worthy of consideration. 



All bench show associations provide competitive classes 

 for black and tan setters, which, nominally, are for Gordon 

 setters, black and tan being their prevailing color ; but such 

 classification, being merely a distinction with respect to 

 color, admits any other breeds of setters, or cross-bred set- 

 ters, if they have the required color qualification ; indeed, 

 dogs of nearly pure English setter blood have won in black 

 and tan classes at prominent shows within a not very remote 

 period ; thus the dog at first lost distinctive Gordon char- 

 acter, and at last ceased to have any fixed desirable char- 

 acter. At present, there are only isolated specimens owned 

 here and there. The existing coarse, scrubby, inferior dogs, 

 having mixed pedigrees, or pedigrees containing a few com- 

 mon, abstract proper names, or, as commonly occurs, hav- 

 ing no known pedigrees, are not imputable to the existing 

 bench show classification ; on the contrary, the classifica- 

 tion is consequential to the dog's unimportance. Bench 

 show associations are not legislators as to the classification 

 of breeds ; they accept facts as they find them. 



While there is a variable ideal type, there is the greatest 

 irregularity and diversity of undesirable individual forms, 

 the coarse, loose, unsymmetrical form being very common. 

 The average winner in a black and tan setter class, classes 

 by the way which are always numerically light, would not 

 be considered worthy of notice in an Irish or English setter 

 class. There are two or three dogs which have been shown, 

 within the past few seasons, as superior specimens of the 

 breed, presumably as it existed at sometime in. the past, but 

 no new specimens are brought forward to succeed them. 



