260 BRITISH DOGS 



everybody did it; and so a headstrong breed arose which no one 

 could manage, and therefore men went out shooting without their 

 dogs. The writer recollects Laverack himself being once asked 

 on the moors with respect to a dog of his, which was endued with 

 perpetual motion, entire self-hunting, and utter regardlessness of 

 whistle, " However do you get that dog home at night ? " " Why, 

 sir, I just wait till he points, and then I put a collar and chain 

 on him and lead him home." 



The writer firmly believes that if Laverack had never existed 

 we should now have a more even and a far more useful Setter, 

 and that many more would be used for shooting. The writer, 

 indeed, had several friends, shooting comrades in those now ancient 

 days, who discarded dogs simply because they could not manage 

 them, and when they came to shoot with him and saw a brace of 

 tremendous rangers put down, who would gallop like lightning, 

 fall down motionless on point in their wild career, and take a fifty- 

 acre field in one beat, they could not understand it ; they could 

 not believe that game was not left behind in those wide quarterings, 

 and although the dogs might never make a mistake, they got so 

 nervous they could not shoot, as they always thought the dogs 

 were going to do some outrageous thing. 



Mr. Laverack never called his dogs by his own name that was the 

 doing of the British public ; indeed, he never claimed to have 

 invented his strain, only to have continued it. Here are his own 

 words, copied from a letter written by himself: "The breed of 

 Setters that I have found most useful and valuable, combining the 

 essential qualities of a setting dog viz. innate point, speed, nose, 

 method of range or carriage, with powers of endurance has been 

 known in the northern counties of Cumberland, Northumberland, 

 and the southern counties of Scotland as the old original black 

 or silver grey, and in Scotland as the old blue Beltons. How 

 they originated I can't say ; but I can state with confidence that 

 I can trace back this breed for a period of seventy-five years or 

 more, having had them in my own possession forty years, and the 

 late Rev. A. Harrison, of Carlisle, from whom I originally obtained 

 them, had them thirty-five years previously." 



The pure Laverack Setter is now as nearly as possible extinct. 

 Mr. Pilkington, of Sandside, Caithness, had, a few years since, and 

 probably still has, a kennel of beautiful Setters, mostly blue Beltons, 

 and these are as good on the moors as they are handsome in the 

 kennel. Some of these may be pure Laveracks ; at all events, they 

 are very closely allied to the strain. Mr. Hartley also, a gentleman 

 residing in Leicestershire, has some fine specimens of the " Pride 

 of the Border" family of Laveracks, which he has kept intact. 

 Of course there may be some others. 



And now we come to the most celebrated strain of the modern 



