3 2 MODERN TRAINING. 



in form and habits ; but, since there are analogous habits, 

 instincts and peculiarities of physical structure more or 

 less common to all dogs, they prove nothing in the absence 

 of all direct evidence. So far as there is any trace of the 

 setter in the past, it was then as truly a distinct species as it 

 is at present, reproducing itself with its peculiar race char- 

 acteristics, and showing no more tendency to variation from 

 race forms or instincts than that common in any of the fixed 

 breeds ; for, in the oldest of pure breeds, no two individuals 

 are precisely alike. Much stress has been laid on the fact 

 that in ancient writings they were called a "setting spaniel," 

 which is no direct proof of accuracy, as the term has not 

 been proven to be general or correct in its application. It 

 is more than probable that the term was used to distinguish 

 the setter as a breed from the spaniel as a breed, which he 

 in some respects resembles, or vice versa; this being still 

 more probable from the then scanty, inaccurate nomencla- 

 ture, careless observation, isolated ownership, and conse- 

 quent lack of knowledge respecting them. Even in our 

 own enlightened age, when knowledge is supposed to have 

 some precision, the setter, as defined by Webster, is as fol- 

 lows : " A sporting dog of the hound kind that indicates, 

 by sitting or crouching, the place where game lies hid. 

 It partakes of the character of the pointer and the spaniel, 

 and is generally regarded as having descended from the 

 crossing of these two varieties." When the present at some 

 period in the far future shall be the ancient past, and many 

 existing facts and fancies shall weigh alike as vague hear- 

 say ; when the present form of the dog will have undergone 

 great improving changes, and when the learned savant then 

 is speculating on the aboriginal stock of the setter, he will 

 learnedly point to that definition as decisive proof, and will 

 tell the lesser savants that the definition was in Webster's 

 Unabridged, the recognized official authority of the ancients; 



