22O The Dog Book 



sportsman, a connection of mine, who was shooting in the Quarters. He 

 told me Dash was the best spaniel he had ever had, that he fetched his game 

 tender mouthed, and that if any other dog attempted to touch it he instantly 

 fell on him and drove him off. These dogs are red and white, strongly 

 made in the chest and hind quarters, and have an intelligent countenance. 

 They are in general not good tempered." 



It will thus be seen that Colonel Hamilton was not giving a beginning 

 of the century recollection about the Clumber, but was speaking of quite 

 a modern dog, so far as his knowledge was concerned, so that Mr. Mercer 

 was not quite justified in the way he suggested that Colonel Hamilton 

 wrote of the Clumber of the "early days of the century." But to Mr. 

 Mercer is due the credit of being the first to draw the attention of dog men 

 to Colonel Hamilton as a writer on the breed. 



Dalziel, with all his Scotch pertinacity and inclination to get to the bot- 

 tom of his subject, could only suggest, by way of an excuse almost, for some- 

 thing better, that the Noailles dogs were Bassets, but he was too shrewd 

 an observer not to disarm criticism by saying that the muteness was a con- 

 tradiction to the supposition of any hound cross. He says that it is difficult 

 to understand how the great difference between the Clumber and the 

 sprightly cocker came about; in the long barrel, short legs and general 

 heavy and inactive appearance, with the heavy head, large truncated 

 muzzle, deep eyes, sometimes showing the haw. But the Clumber is not 

 any longer, if as long, in proportion to his height than the black field spaniel, 

 and what was that dog twenty-five years ago ? In the days of Brush the 

 field spaniel was mainly a large cocker, and it was not until the time that 

 Mr. Jacobs took hold of it, and others followed, that we got the very great 

 length that we still have. Was there such a wonderful lot of difference at 

 that time between the Sussex and Clumber as to puzzle any one to imagine 

 they both could not be genuine spaniels ? Look at the dual illustration of 

 the Sussex and Clumber in "The Book of the Dog," published less than 

 thirty years ago, and which would be which if they were colourless. 



The haw is not necessarily indicative of hound blood. If it was would 

 we not have it in all hounds ? What causes it is the weight of the flews, 

 and in all breeds with an extra development of lip and loose skin there is 

 the aptitude to have the lower lid pulled down from the eye. We get it 

 in the mastiff, the St. Bernard, the Clumber, the Sussex, and the Gordon 

 at times. The English Spaniel Club now proposes doing away with the 



