106 THE AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DOG. 



Owing to the constant experimentation in the breeding 

 of our canine friends for hundreds of years (and even at the 

 present time), it would seem absurd, to the thinking, 

 intelligent reader, to claim any breed of dogs as the only 

 great and original creation. Education, climate, food, 

 infusion of new blood, domestication which corresponds 

 to civilization in man have done as much for the canine 

 as they have for the human family. And it is perhaps 

 well for the whole race of dogs that outside blood has, at 

 times, been sought for and obtained, and the deteriorating 

 effects of too close inbreeding thereby happily averted. 

 Mr. Laverack has himself confessed that at one time he lost 

 many of his dogs by too continuously breeding-in his strain; 

 and he not only admits that he once infused a valuable dash 

 of liver-and- white blood, from the North of England, into 

 his kennels, but that he made two separate visits to Ireland 

 for the purpose of looking up a suitable Irish dog to use 

 for a similar purpose. 



THE OLD SPANISH POINTER. 



Notwithstanding the uncertainty that exists regarding 

 the time when the Spanish Pointer was first introduced 

 into England, there seems to be a general consensus of 

 opinion that the year 1600 is about the period that marks 

 his advent under that name. The dog known as the ' ' Old 

 Spanish Pointer'' was the representative of the type at 

 that time, and has been described by Sydenham Edwards, 

 in " Cynographia Britannica" (1805), as follows: 



The Spanish Pointer is a heavy, loose-made dog, about twenty-two 

 inches high, bearing no small resemblance to the slow Southern Hound. 

 Head large, indented between the eyes; lips large and pendulous; ears thin, 

 loose, and hanging down, of a moderate length; coat short and smooth; color, 

 dark-brown or liver-color, liver-color-and- white, red-and-white, black, black- 

 and-white, sometimes tanned about the face and eyes, often thickly speckled 

 with small spots on a white ground; the tail thin, smooth, and wiry; frequently 

 dew-claws upon the hind legs; the hind feet often turning a little outward. 



The Spanish Pointer was introduced into this country, by a Portugese 



.merchant, at a very modern period, and was first used by an old reduced baron 



of the name of Bichell, who lived in Norfolk, and could shoot flying; indeed, 



he seems to have lived by his gun, as the game he killed was sold in the London 



