The Bob-Tailed Sheep Dog 381 



The evidence presented in this and the preceding chapter is sufficient 

 to show that there is no trace of this variety of sheep dog much farther 

 back than 1800. He was not known by Caius, or to the later author 

 of the "Foure Bookes of Husbandry." We cannot say that we have a 

 very pronounced opinion, but it is fully as strong as that of the New Yorker 

 who seeks to evade jury duty and swears that he has an opinion requiring 

 evidence to remove, and our opinion is this: The bob-tailed sheep dog 

 such as was seen thirty years ago was by no means so large as the modern 

 fancy developed dog, but was of a more useful size, akin to that of the 

 smooth drover's dog, and the only known dog that he then resembled was 

 the Russian setter, pointer or retriever, as he was variously called. Very 

 few dog men of the present have any knowledge of that setter, but whenever 

 we have been asked about their appearance we have always said that they 

 looked more like a lightly built bob-tailed sheep dog reduced to the size 

 of a large setter, than anything we have knowledge of. If the reader turns 

 to the representation of "The Pointer," by Sydenham Edwards, in the 

 chapter on the pointer, Part IV., he will there see what the head of the 

 Russian dog looked like, and note for himself the strong resemblance to 

 what the sheep dog must have been before being improved to his present 

 standard. 



This Russian dog is not known now, but he was far from being un- 

 common some time prior to 1800, and was well known for some time after 

 that. In the chapter on the pointer we have quoted the Rev. Mr. Simons 

 to the effect that the Earl of Powis had some which were said to have come 

 from Lorraine, and describes them as being sullen in disposition. Colonel 

 Hamilton we also quoted from as having owned some of them, and his 

 shooting was in Oxfordshire. Another who tended to bring them into 

 prominent notice was the late Joseph Lang, a well-known gun maker of 

 London. A year ago we called at the present Lang establishment when 

 visiting London, but there was nothing to be obtained in the way of pictures, 

 the only record of the old gentleman's connection with the breed being his 

 letter to "Craven" in the "Young Sportsman's Manual." In this letter 

 Mr. Lang states that he visited an old friend in Somersetshire for a week's 

 shooting and had his best setters "beaten hollow" by his friend's dogs, 

 which were bred from pure Russian setters, crossed with an English setter 

 which had once belonged to Joseph Manton. Determined to beat the 

 Russians, Mr. Lang next season purchased two exceptionally fine setters in 



