CHAPTER XXIV 

 THE POINTER 



THE pointing dog was first introduced into England about two 

 hundred years ago This seems clear ; because before the eighteenth 

 century no trace of him can be found in either the pictures or 

 books on sport, the first record of him in this country being a 

 picture of the Duke of Kingston, with his kennel of Pointers, 

 dated 1725. Now, these dogs are of the same elegant Franco- 

 Italian type as the pointing dogs painted by Oudry and Desportes 

 for the French kings at the end of the seventeenth century ; so that, 

 in spite of this picture by Tillemans being the earliest British 

 representation, it cannot be supposed to depict the absolute pioneers 

 of the breed ; for the name " Pointer," derived from the Spanish 

 punta, implies that the first ancestors of the breed must have 

 come from Spain, probably brought back by our returning army 

 after the Peace of Utrecht in 1712. And it must have been 

 by judiciously blending the blood of the heavy Spaniard with that 

 of the racing-like French dog, that the Duke of Kingston and 

 enthusiasts of a similar stamp first created that monarch of his 

 race, the English Pointer. 



The forms of the dogs portrayed in this Tillemans picture 

 completely demolish the vulgarly received idea that the cross 

 with the Foxhound was necessary to give the Poin-ter quality or 

 speed. In fact, this cross was most probably an experiment 

 arising from the superstitious belief of some that the Foxhound 

 was so superior an animal, that any other breed whatever must 

 derive benefit from an admixture of his blood. 



Colonel Thornton, in the dying years of the eighteenth century, 

 seems, from the unanimous voice of his contemporaries, to have 

 been the first to try this disastrous misalliance; and no doubt 

 his immediate success in producing in this way such an animal 

 as his celebrated Dash (sold for about .350), has induced many 

 others since then to imitate his pernicious example. 



In the earlier decades of the nineteenth century, sporting 

 literature began to develop very rapidly ; but, imbued with the 

 true spirit of sport as most of it is, details as to individual dogs 



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