THE RETRIEVERS 



347 



have refused to boom the breed, and its splendid isolation remains 

 as of yore. 



As to the origin of the Curly-coated Retriever, the writer would 

 be sorry to lay down the law ; but he has a shrewd idea that the 

 Poodle and the Irish Water-Spaniel had a look in somewhere, and 



it may have had its origin in the alliance of such with a Flat-coated 

 Retriever or a Labrador. This is rank heresy in the ears of 

 votaries of the breed, of course ; for these enthusiasts claim that the 

 Curly-coated variety existed in approximately its present type when 

 yet the germs of the modern Flat-coated Retriever were reposing in 

 the entity of the Setter and the Newfoundland or the Labrador. But 



