CHAPTER XIII 



THE FIELD SPANIEL 



PANIELS of a size larger than cockers and intermediate 

 to the setter have been known for many years. They 

 have had a variety of names, such as finders, starters, spring- 

 ers, and still later that of field spaniels; but in treating of the 

 field spaniel of the present day it is not necessary to go further 

 back than the time when the modern type was established, mainly by Mr. 

 T. Jacobs in the early eighties. Prior to the period when that gentleman 

 revolutionised the variety the heavy spaniel which was neither Sussex 

 nor Clumber, and might be of any colour, was classed as a field spaniel 

 and was of no definite and settled type. It ran higher on the leg and had 

 a coat more inclined to wave or curl than had the dogs introduced by 

 Mr. Jacobs, which set the fashion we have followed ever since. Of course 

 we are speaking entirely of spaniels in England, for spaniels up to that 

 period were a motley lot in this country. In English works on the dog a 

 good deal is said about the old Burdett, Bullock and Boulton strains, and 

 we have nothing to say against them in any way. Indeed, it is almost 

 certain that as regards usefulness they were superior to the present-day 

 dog, which, with all his show qualities in appearance, we cannot help 

 concluding is not much adapted for use. His conformation is proof posi-' 

 tive that he has no great speed, but moves like a Clumber or a heavy 

 Sussex, and his vocation is in heavy coverts at a moderate pace; a kind of 

 shooting very little followed in this country. 



The pre-Jacobites, if we must invent a word, were mainly like large 

 cocker spaniels in conformation, and although we read in the older books 

 of Stonehenge and writers of his period of their lowness and length, that 

 was only a comparative description. The prize winners were lower in 

 comparison with length than the ordinary run of working spaniels of that 

 period, but we should call them too high on the leg now. They also lacked 

 the type in head called for in present-day spaniels, and we really think 

 were more spaniel-like than our exaggerated type. We will take Brush 



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