Spaniels. 135 



selection of the few for special honours from the great body of the family 

 on account of one special property than from general excellence, as, for 

 instance, the black field spaniels, for whom modern fashion reserves all 

 bench honours to the exclusion of parti-coloured dogs. 



The wisdom of this I have always thought doubtful, and, indeed, 

 rather more than doubtful, and, in my opinion, our present classification 

 the classification adopted at our shows and the standard of excellence 

 required in dogs to win ignores the important, and, indeed, absolutely essen- 

 tial point of view to a sportsman, that of apparent working capacity. We 

 have allowed the arbitrary and ornamental points to supersede the useful, 

 and this is especially so in the rage for black spaniels to the exclusion of 

 others in the class now known as " field spaniels." Even the name is 

 not over-happily chosen ; for in the wood, the covert, the brake, or the 

 hedgerow the land spaniel, as he was originally called, is still more at 

 home than in the field, unless we use the term spaniel in the wider sense 

 adopted by our fathers as applied to the setter, and even the pointer, 

 which was frequently known as the smooth spaniel. 



That covert hunting has, however, for many generations, ever since 

 the introduction of fowling pieces, been the spaniel's great forte, there can 

 be no denying, useful as he often proves at different work. The poet 

 Somerville writes on this topic in terms as emphatic as they are stirring 

 to the soul of a sportsman : 



But if the shady woods my cares employ 

 In quest of feathered game, my spaniels beat, 

 Puzzling the entangled copse ; and from the brake 

 Push forth the whirring pheasant; high in air 

 He waves his varied plumes, stretching away 

 With hasty wing. Soon from th' uplifted tube 

 The mimic thunder bursts, the leaden death 

 O'ertakes him ; and with many a giddy whirl 

 To earth he falls, and at my feet expires. 



With this in view we have to consider whether the modern spaniel, as 

 encouraged by and bred for dog shows, is an improvement or otherwise, and 

 whether the plan followed by those who have the management of such 

 shows has not done a direct injury to the breeding of a very large, wide- 

 spread, and most useful class of dog, simply because they do not accord 

 with the distinctions of colour and other minor points arbitrarily set up. 



First, let us briefly glance at the history of the spaniel, or rather at a 

 few of the very meagre notices of him which we get at wide intervals. I 



