The Poodle. 425 



although the curls are thinner and harder than the variety of sheep I 

 presume the great naturalist here to take for his illustration. Fitzinger 

 accurately describes the coat as falling down "regularly in rows of 

 straight cords," and I imagine this is the most marked characteristic of 

 the breed, and that the fluffy and coarse and open woolly coated are 

 impure, except, of course, where the open coat has been artificially 

 obtained by brush and comb. This, I think, is the case with some of. 

 the beat samples of those black shaven ones now in vogue. I lately saw 

 at Westgate-on-Sea a splendid specimen, identical in size and shape with 

 the present winning dogs, but unshaven, black as jet in coat, which 

 consisted of beautiful corded ringlets throughout. 



The white corded variety, with shorter legs, has long been cultivated 

 in our northern counties, but one of the best specimens in England, shown 

 by Mr. Walter Potts at Hanover, in 1879, stood no chance against the 

 German exhibits, which included the finest specimens I have ever seen, 

 perfect in the long equal quill-like curls or cords, of a rich creamy white, 

 which covered every part of their bodies. 



The poodle, or what I take to be a poodle cross, is, I understand, in 

 great request among the " one-horse " sportsmen of the Continent, those 

 gentlemen who think of the currant jelly, and mean the pot to boil, and 

 who are still in the backward stage of sport our ancestors are represented 

 to have occupied in the words of the song 



Shoot how you can was then the plan, 

 Some hundred years ago. 



For such a purpose a large poodle with a dash of spaniel would seem the 

 very thing to be desired. There is no lack of reasoning power in the 

 poodle, and his widespread olfactories seize the slightest particle of the 

 tainted gale and unerringly lead him to his prey, whilst the spaniel cross, 

 or even a rough terrier or a hound one, would improve his coat for marsh 

 and river work, and give him more dash and go. 



In this country pure poodles are not worked, nor are there any longer 

 to be found, unless it be in rare instances, his close ally, the old water 

 dog, common in the beginning of the ceutury, and specimens of which I 

 have seen at work in its fifth decade. There has of late been in the 

 columns of the Field a suggestion made to introduce poodle blood in our 

 retrievers, and the idea met with considerable support. I cannot see the 

 necessity for it, but I should not hesitate to introduce it into my kennels 



F P 



