THE CLUMBER SPANIEL. 313 



desideratum. It is killing, certainly, and in an eminently 

 sportsmanlike way. 



Their scent is simply marvelous, and is scarcely subor- 

 dinate in excellence to that of the Pointer and Setter; indeed 

 one gentleman in particular takes me to task for, in a 

 former article, placing them on a par at all, so high is his 

 opinion of the Clumber's keenness of scent. 



They are all-around dogs, good alike in water and on 

 land. To quote a sixty-year-old sportsman friend, writing 

 in our leading sportsman's paper, some two years since: 

 ' ' For snipe, woodcock, and partridge (ruffed grouse) shoot- 

 ing, and for retrieving ducks, I consider them unequaled by 

 any breed of dogs, and I believe they would also be excellent 

 dogs to shoot quail over. They hunt so close to the gun that 

 their flushing the birds without pointing would not be of 

 any consequence, and in finding scattered birds after the 

 bevies had been flushed and marked down, I believe they 

 would not be excelled by the very best Pointers and Set- 

 ters." In all of which I fully coincide. 



Keen-scented, obedient, and withal passionately fond of 

 his work, he is the beau ideal of the sportsman's compan- 

 ion. Among his many good qualities is one that should 

 especially recommend him to the average sportsman, who 

 has but little time to spend afield, much less in breaking a 

 dog he is a natural worker, and needs but little training. 

 While on game he is entirely mute, which is, of course, a 

 great recommendation, as nothing disturbs game more than 

 the yapping of a noisy dog. 



It is quite the fashion among sportsmen to decry the 

 Clumber's working capabilities; to say "they're too big" 

 or "too clumsy," and frequently to conclude by informing 

 you gravely that " they're no good anyway." But happily 

 their dictum with the cognoscenti does not carry much 

 weight. No one that would speak in such a strain could 

 have seen a good Clumber at work. The writer has tried 

 them very high, and has never known them to fail. He has 

 worked one, Champion Johnny, a seventy-pound dog, for 

 seventeen consecutive days without visibly affecting him; 



