THE CLUMBER SPANIEL. 309 



breed. ... It is no easy matter to breed Clumbers successfully. They 

 will allow of no cross, but they often improve ordinary Field Spaniels, and it is 

 difficult to produce thick, short-legged ones without an infusion of the blood. 

 It will be evident from my foregoing remarks that all the Clumbers in the 

 kingdom sprung from one family and one place, and therefore there can be no 

 change of blood; and although an interchange of puppies from the few ken- 

 nels scattered up and down the country does good, it can not refresh the 

 constitution like a new strain. 



From this lack of infusions of new blood, the Clumber 

 has been constitutionally weakened; but only during pup- 

 pyhood, to the ills of which he is peculiarly susceptible. 

 On the attainment of full growth, however, no more hardy 

 dog exists, and no further trouble on this score need be 

 apprehended. 



Non-converts to the belief that this breed is the original 

 Land Spaniel, and as ' ' pure ' ' a one as any can be, advance 

 a number of theories as to how it was evolved. Of these, 

 the most credible is that it is derived from a union of the 

 French Basset Hound and the nondescript Spaniel of the 

 time. Yet another faction hold out that it originated in a 

 cross between the Turnspit (a very long, short-legged dog, 

 so named from his being used to turn the spit on which the 

 meat roasted; the breed, if indeed there ever was a breed, 

 is now extinct) and the Land Spaniel. But it seems so 

 highly improbable that a sportsman should invoke the aid 

 of the kitchen in breeding a sporting dog, that, outside of 

 every other consideration, I consider the contention unten- 

 able. 



After much research and inquiry, the writer has arrived 

 at the conclusion that the first specimens brought to Amer- 

 ica were imported by Lieutenant (afterward Major) Vena- 

 bles, of Her Majesty's Ninety-seventh Regiment, then in 

 garrison at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1842. He 

 obtained his dogs from the kennels of Marwood Yeatman, 

 Esq., the Stock House, Dorset, whose ownership of "excel- 

 lent" Clumbers is especially mentioned by "Idstone" in 

 his book. The writer has three of the direct descendants 

 of these dogs in his kennels, and Mr. George Piers also is 

 the owner of two bitches of the same breeding; but his old 

 dog Smash II. was accidentally poisoned last year. 



