KEMINISCENCES OP THE LEWS. 149 



foxhound cross in them. They, I think, as 

 far as coat and hardihood go, will stand it as 

 well, or perhaps better, than the well-bred 

 setters of English, Scotch, or Irish blood, 

 whose coats have not the thickness of the ordi- 

 nary coarse-coated setters. But then I have 

 almost always invariably found the pointer fail 

 in the foot when the ground is wet, as it is 

 in the Lews. The pointer's foot skins and 

 blisters on wet muirs between the toes : but 

 for this, I never should have kept a setter in 

 my life. Indeed, the setters (Gordons) scarcely 

 could stand the constant wet. I never had to 

 do with such a climate for dogs in my life; 

 they were never dry. I never could get them 

 to look as I liked, nor had they ever the con- 

 dition they should have had. The food was 

 nothing but the eternal oatmeal ; flesh was all 

 but impossible to get, and cracklings or greaves 

 are, to my mind, an abomination. There was 

 no bedding but the worst possible description 

 of oat-straw or bad hay. If distemper got 

 among them, good-bye to them; there was 

 scarcely any saving them. Twice or thrice my 

 kennel was so swept, that I almost gave up 

 breeding in despair, when my four best dogs 

 all went in one fell swoop. It was necessary 

 to keep a much larger kennel for my work in 



