THE IKISH SETTER. 61 



required for hard work, they would select the animal best 

 suited for that purpose; and the breeding of successive gen- 

 erations of animals capable of hunting the wet bogs and 

 mountains of Ireland has resulted in building up a race 

 which may be equaled, but certainly can not be excelled, by 

 any sporting dog in the world; and so carefully and 

 jealously were they preserved, and so highly were they 

 prized, that we are told by a writer (I. Scott) in the Sports- 

 man' s Cabinet of 1823 of the renewal of a lease given for a 

 dog and bitch, which lease, if allowed to expire, would 

 have cleared for the landlord 250 per annum. 



"As to their color, this same writer tells us that it was 

 all red, or deep chestnut and white. No doubt this all red 

 was obtained by careful selection, with an evident purpose 

 to subserve a useful end, by Irish sportsmen, and that 

 long before the days of fire-arms this exquisitely deep 

 chestnut, so characteristic of the breed, may have been, and 

 no doubt was suggested to our rude forefathers by the color 

 of the red deer of their native hills and forests a color 

 which harmonized so well with the hues of the decaying 

 bracken and the purple heather as to aid in concealing him 

 from his enemies. However this may be, the deep dark red 

 of the Irish Setter would have the advantage of enabling 

 him to approach closer to his game in fact, would make 

 him almost invisible, and so all the more capable of serving 

 his master's ends; and if this be an advantage in the present 

 day, as it undoubtedly is, how much greater must have 

 been the advantage in the days of our sturdy sires, whose 

 rude weapons necessitated a closer approach to their game. 



" A well-known writer of our day recognizes the advan- 

 tage of protective colors in the sportsman's dress, and 

 advises him, when he expects the birds to be wild, to adopt 

 garments of a somber hue, avoiding conspicuous colors. 

 Stonehenge says: ' Because of the wariness of the grouse, 

 the color of the clothes should be attended to.' He recom- 

 mends the heather pattern, from its resemblance to the 

 general covert of the birds. Under all these circumstances, 

 I think we can have no difficulty in tracing the origin and 



