1 64 British Dogs. 



as well as in coat, much resembling the modern curly retriever, making 

 due allowance for the improvements produced by careful breeding for 

 competition for twelve or fifteen years. 



There are, I know, many who think the retriever owes his remarkably 

 curly coat to the Irish water spaniel ; against this we have the recorded 

 opinion of that high authority on Irish spaniels, Mr. McCarthy, that 

 these dogs will not bear a cross with other breeds, and that the cross with 

 the setter, spaniel, Newfoundland, or Labrador, which would be the most 

 likely to be resorted to to produce the retriever, " completely destroys 

 the coat, ears, tail, and symmetry." 



From Mr. McCarthy's experience his opinion must have great weight, 

 and yet against that a case came under my personal notice which, as 

 far as a single case can, controverts that opinion. About thirteen years 

 ago I sent to my brother, a farmer in the west of Scotland, a pure-bred 

 Irish spaniel maiden bitch ; she proved a most excellent all-round 

 dog, good alike at questing and retrieving, and just the thing for a one- 

 dog sportsman, and that led to the desire to breed from her ; but as there 

 were no dogs of the same breed in the locality she was sent to a retriever 

 with a considerable amount of Gordon setter blood in him. I some years 

 afterwards saw two of the produce ; both were jet black, and with most 

 perfect curly coats, and one kept and worked by my brother was as clever 

 as he was in some points good looking ; but I cannot claim for him excel- 

 lence in symmetry a point which, with all respect to my friend Mr. J. S. 

 Skidmore and other partisans of the Irish spaniel, I think that dog remark- 

 ably deficient in. 



Among the exhibitors of this retriever that have been prominent as 

 winners of late years are : Mr. J. W. Morris, Rochdale ; Mr. F. J. 

 Staples-Brown, Brashfield ; Mr. J. H. Salter, ToUeshunt D'Arcy; Mr. 

 G. Thorpe-Bartram, Braintree ; Mr. W. Arkwright, Sutton Scarsdale ; 

 Mr. E. Ellis, Doncaster ; Mr. S. Darby, Tiverton ; and Mr. W. A. How, 

 Whitwick, all of whom possess first-class specimens. Mr. Morris's True 

 and X L have often properly figured at the head of their respective cham- 

 pion classes. True is closely matched by Mr. How's champion Toby, 

 the subject of our illustration, and Mr. Thorpe-Bartram' s Nell is, in 

 the opinion of many judges, quite equal, if not superior, to X L, and 

 Mr. Tom B. Swinburne's young bitch Chicory, by Mr. Salter' s King 

 Koffee, bids fair to surpass both, having youth on her side, and being, in 



