322 BRITISH DOGS 



appearance of an old ewe whose fleece has escaped the last year's 

 shearing. Why it should be thought desirable to have lumps of dead 

 hair mixed with the growing coat is not obvious. The practice has 

 nothing to commend it, and it must have been a hindrance to the 

 advance of the breed in popular favour, for it gives a ragged, dis- 

 reputable appearance to the dog, and the rusty lumps of dead hair 

 render him malodorous as well as unsightly. 



It has been suggested that the decline of the wildfowler's art has 

 to do with the scanty number of Irish Spaniels now met with ; but 

 there are probably now more wildfowl shooters than ever there were. 

 The fact is, most of these men are content with a dog of any 

 kind that will do the work required, and cannot afford or do not 

 care to give the high and quite artificial prices asked for dogs 

 , of show renown, or those bred from such. In addition to which, 

 the sporting reputation of the Irish Water Spaniel is at present, 

 rightly or wrongly, under a cloud. Most of the practical sports- 

 men of to-day will laugh at the mere suggestion of their taking 

 to this dog for work, and many will at once commence to preach 

 about his hardness of mouth, and the absence in him of the 

 natural instinct and intelligence possessed by others of his tribe. 

 The writer regards this antipathy as mainly arising from prejudice; 

 he himself knew an Irish Spaniel bitch, owned by a personal friend, 

 which was a very fair worker, and certainly was perfectly tender in 

 the mouth. Still, the breed, much to the detriment of its sporting 

 value, has unfortunately fallen into the clutches of the fancier, who 

 naturally could not resist a dog with such contradictory fascinations 

 as a whip-tail and a topknot ! 



Now, therefore, or never is the opportunity for the Irish Spaniel 

 Club to disprove these ill-defined but prevalent suspicions of their 

 favourites, by holding those trials, rumours of which have already 

 been too long floating about ! Now is the right time for showing 

 the sporting world that the Irish Spaniel is still capable of doing 

 his work ! Trials for Water Spaniels might require some ingenuity 

 to design, but the difficulties are not so serious as those that have 

 been overcome in the case of Retriever trials ; and one such trial, 

 successfully carried out, would do more to popularise and resuscitate 

 the breed than the best of " special classifications " at the dog 

 shows with challenge cups and championships galore. 



Mr. J. S. Skidmore, once at the head of successful breeders 

 of this variety, and whose opinion is well entitled to respect, con- 

 tributed to the First Edition of this work the following remarks on 

 the breed, which are fair, free, and full, with just the right flavour 

 of favouritism towards a dog he had made his special hobby : 



" To a sportsman of limited means, or one who has not accom- 

 modation to keep a team, the Irish Water Spaniel is the most useful 



