THE POINTER. 



241 



fewer people keep them now than was the 

 case a quarter of a century ago, owing to the 

 advance of quick-shooting, otherwise driving, 

 and the consequent falling away of the old- 

 fashioned methods, both for the stubble and 

 the moor. However, there are many still 

 who enjoy the work of dogs, and it would 

 be a sin indeed in the calendar of British 

 sports if the fine old breed of Pointer were 

 allowed even to deteriorate. The apparent 

 danger is that the personal or individual ele- 

 ment is dying out. In 

 the 'seventies the names 

 of Drake, Ch. Bang, or 

 Garnet were like household 

 words. People talked of 

 the great Pointers. They 

 were spoken of in club 

 chat or gossip ; written 

 about ; and the prospects 

 of the moors were much 

 associated with the up-to- 

 date characters of the 

 Pointers and Setters. 

 There is very little of 

 this sort of talk now-a- 

 days. Guns are more 

 critically spoken of, and 

 the closest patterns and 

 newest inventions are at 

 any rate more familiar topics. There is, how- 

 ever, a wide enough world to supply with 

 first-class Pointers. In England's numerous 

 colonies it may be much more fitting to shoot 

 over dogs. It has been tried in South Africa 

 with marvellous results. Descendants of 

 Ch. Bang have delighted the lone colonist 

 on Cape partridge and quails, and Pointers 

 suit the climate, whereas Setters do not. 

 The Americans have shown on the other side 

 of the Atlantic that dogs are indispensable 

 as the associates of sport. They saw, or 

 probably read about, the doings of the Setters 

 and Pointers of the 'sixties and 'seventies, 

 and they promptly provided themselves with 

 the best of the stocks. They boast at 

 present that they have far better examples 

 of both breeds than can be found in England 

 — and perhaps that is a correct view. 

 In the British dominions, however, there 

 should be plenty of room for the Pointer 



and Setter for instance, and settlers can 

 hardly do better than to take out to 

 Canada some of the best bred Pointers 

 from England, not forgetting the strains 

 mentioned in these pages — the Drakes, 

 the Hamlets, Price's Ch. Bang, the Mike 

 Romps, that gave Mr. Salter's kennel 

 almost world-wide repute, the Seftons, the 

 Derbys, and Sir Thomas Lennards. The 

 blood of all can be found— of course diluted, 

 and perhaps in some instances too much 



MR. W. ARKWRIGHT'S BLACK BITCH 

 BY LORNE FIRST FIDDLE 95. 



LEADER 



inbred — but there again comes in the science 

 of breeding and the means of improve- 

 ment. The Pointer is a noble breed to take 

 up, as those still in middle life have seen 

 their extraordinary merit whenever bred 

 in the right way. There are two breeds that 

 should, as the saying goes, stay for ever, the 

 Foxhound and the Pointer. No day's sport 

 should be too long for either. When a couple 

 of hours or half a day's work is enough 

 to steady a Pointer to a trot there is some- 

 thing decidedly wrong in the pedigree. It 

 may be the Foxhound that originally gave 

 the endurance, but surely enough it ought to 

 be there. Then the pace, the style, the in- 

 telligence, the intense fondness for sport, 

 and the working as if by very nature to the 

 gun, must all be thought of. The late Charles 

 Littleworth, huntsman to Lord Ports- 

 mouth's hounds, used to watch Ch. Bang for 

 half an hour when he saw him at an Exeter 



