The English Setter 139 



Field and Farm assailed us and now Mr. L. H. Smith declares we are " a 

 bottle of soda water," whereupon the Doctor uncorked himself and told 

 more real truths about the Llewellyn business than has appeared in that 

 paper since then. It is impossible to quote him in the entirety as what he 

 had to say on the subject filled a score of pages from first to last, but the 

 following extracts are pertinent: 



" When a breeder by any peculiar plan shall change a breed of animals, 

 and that change is uniform and can be intelligently defined, the group 

 admits of a new classification. But Mr. Buckell (Mr. Llewellyn's right- 

 hand man) ignores these facts when he writes about the Llewellyn setter as 

 a breed. Neither he nor Mr. Llewellyn can show a title to the name, nor 

 has any attempt been made to show what right Mr. Llewellyn has to monopo- 

 lise the breeding of the dogs he calls Llewellyns. He bought Dan and 

 Dick and Dora from their breeder Mr. Statter; then he purchased the 

 Laverack setters Prince, Countess, Nellie, Lill II., and others. Dan, 

 Dick and Dora he called Llewellyn setters. Dora's puppies by a Laverack 

 dog he called Llewellyn setters. He might as well have called the Laverack 

 setters Llewellyns. If he had a right to call Dan a Llewellyn setter, simply 

 because he owned him, any man has the right to class any dog he may 

 purchase as of a special new breed. 



" But Mr. Llewellyn did not stop with so much monopoly as we have 

 mentioned. He proclaimed, or Mr. Buckell did for him, that every dog in 

 the land which was bred like Dan or Dick or Dora, or their progeny, out of 

 Laverack setters were Llewellyn setters, and it mattered not where they 

 were owned or who bred them. He went still further, and claimed as his 

 breed all dogs out of Rhoebe (a bitch he did not breed or own) by a Laverack 

 dog. Dogs by Duke (a dog he neither bred nor owned) out of a Laverack 

 setter bitch were his breed; dogs by Duke out of Rhoebe were his breed; 

 the progeny of Duke-Rhoebe on the Laveracks were his breed. These 

 bred back again to the Laveracks or to the other side were his breed. It 

 does not make any difference how much Laverack blood there might be in a 

 dog if the remotest part of the pedigree shows Duke or Rhoebe, or Dan or 

 Dora, or any of the many Duke-Rhoebe-Laverack combinations, they are 

 his breed if no other blood is shown. On the other hand, it matters not how 

 much Duke or Rhoebe blood, or both, is present, a drop of Laverack makes 

 it Llewellyn. 



"Thus Rob Roy, a noted field trial dog which Mr. Llewellyn never 



