130 The Dog Book 



Countess and her sister, and then some more winners of Mr. Statter's breed- 

 ing. These he crossed, not as anything new or patented by him, but 

 merely what many other English breeders were then doing. He, however, 

 had the very good fortune to sell some of his dogs to some Americans, who 

 at once proceeded to exploit the "strain," and, to differentiate them from 

 the Laveracks, styled them Llewellyns. Now we have dogs from that 

 breeder's kennels which were not of the cross between the Statter setters 

 and the Laveracks, for Mr. Llewellyn very soon introduced different blood; 

 and on the other hand, we have had dogs of this Dan-Laverack strain, as 

 Stonehenge called the cross, which Mr. Llewellyn never saw. That Llewel- 

 lyn enthusiast, Mr. Joseph A. Graham, of St. Louis, in "The Sporting 

 Dog," frankly and honestly says that it is impossible to give a definition 

 that will hold good. He says the exclusionists' definition of Duke-Rhoebe 

 and Laverack will not hold good because it shuts out "a large number of the 

 most respected names in Llewellyn pedigrees;" meaning dogs bought from 

 that breeder with later crosses of Dash II. blood. Then he says that to 

 limit the title to dogs which had come from Mr. Llewellyn's kennel would 

 exclude all the Blue Beltons and several others. These exclusionists 

 wanted to keep out the Gleam strain because of his descent from another 

 outside cross, that of Sam; but now they have let down the bars and the 

 Gleams are in the inner circle. Finally, Mr. Graham says it "would be as 

 well to go further and drop the 'pure' idea altogether, letting Llewellyn 

 blood stand for what it is an influential but not separate element in English 

 setter breeding." But he still leaves us puzzling as to what this Llewellyn 

 blood is. Is it everything that Mr. Llwellyn bred from all sorts of outside 

 sources, and everything that others bred at the same time and in the same 

 way as he did, or what ? 



Bringing this question down to the present times, there was a special 

 offered by Mr. Graham at the St. Louis Exposition dog show for the best 

 Llewellyn dog and another for the best Llewellyn bitch. When it came to 

 the judging Ben Lewis took in his regular class winners, Bracken o'Leck 

 and Lansdowne Mallwyd Di. There was much discussion in the ring as 

 to eligibility, and Mr. Marsh Byers, the judge, finally said as no one could 

 give any definition or show any published condition governing the special, 

 he could only judge the dogs claimed to be Llewellyns and the class awards 

 were followed. We later saw the official judges' record and there was a 

 memorandum "disqualified" against these winners, but by whom made 



