The Black Curly-Coated Retriever. 163 



CHAPTER XXXIIL THE BLACK CURLY-COATED 

 RETRIEVER. 



BY CORSINCON. 



THERE are few handsomer dogs than a good specimen of this breed, 

 such, for instance, as Toby, True, X L, Muswell-Butterfly, or Chicory, 

 with their compact forms, neat clean legs, and coats of jetty black, per- 

 fectly regular crisp little nigger curls, level, thick, and clustering over 

 every part from ears to end of tail, as though clothed with the heads of 

 so many prize piccaninnies. 



How the variety originated I do not pretend to say with any degree of 

 certainty, for if we turn to the pedigrees of our most noted specimens we 

 find ourselves very soon at the end of 'a blind alley, even their immediate 

 progenitors being, as a rule, identified by their owner's name, and not by 

 pedigree. 



That they are compounded of several elements that are only just 

 becoming so thoroughly commingled as to breed with any certainty of 

 result, I have the experience of breeders to warrant me in believing ; 

 for, however good two specimens may be in that great desidera- 

 tum coat, for instance the percentage of their produce equally 

 good in that respect has been small. This, however, the further we 

 get from the different sources originally resorted to, and the closer 

 we keep to those having in a high degree the properties in common 

 which we desire to propagate, becomes altered, and soon, if not now, 

 we will be able to rely on securing good and level litters, with merely 

 &n occasional pup throwing back, which should in all cases be carefully 

 weeded out. 



I am of opinion that the crisp curly coat has been obtained from 

 the old close-curled English water spaniel, which one looks for in vain 

 now in the classes set apart at our shows for this breed. Their place is 

 now usurped by a class of dog with a coat I should call " irregular " for 

 want of a better term, for it is neither flat, wavy, nor curled, and in other 

 points as well as coat widely differing from the^old English water spaniel 

 as described by Youatt and "Stonehenge." The latter in body, carriage, 



M 2 



