Early Spaniels and Setters 87 



water such fowle as be stounge to death by any venemous worme, we vse 

 them also to bring vs our boultes & arrowes out of the water (missing our 

 marcke) whereat we directed our leuell, which otherwise we should hardly 

 recouer, and oftentimes the restore to vs our shaftes which we thought neuer to 

 se, touche or handle againe, after they were lost, for which circumstances 

 they are called Inquisitores, searchers, and finders. Although the ducke otherwhiles 

 notably deceaueth both the dogge and the master, by dyuing vnder the water, and 

 also by naturall subtility, for if any man shall approache to the place where they 

 builde, breede, and syt, the hennes go out of their neastes, offering themselues 

 voluntarily to the hands, as it were, of such as draw nie their neastes. And a certaine 

 weaknesse of their winges pretended, and infirmitie of their feete dissembled, they 

 go so slowely and so leisurely, that to a man's thinking it were no masteryes to take 

 them. By which deceiptful tricke they doe as it were entyse and allure men to 

 follow them, till they be drawn a long distance from theyr neastes, which being 

 compassed by their prouident conning, or conning providence they cut of all incon- 

 ueniences which might growe of their returne, by using many carefull and curious 

 caucates, least theyr often haunting bewray ye place where the young ducklings 

 be hatched. Great therefore is theyr desire, & earnest is theyr study to take heede, 

 not only to theyr broode but also to themselues. For when they haue an ynklin 

 that they are espied they hide themselves vnder turfes or sedges, wherewith they 

 couer and shrowde themselues so closely and so craftely, that (notwithstanding the 

 place where they lurke be found and perfectly perceaued) there they will harbour 

 without harme, except the water spaniell by quicke smelling discouer theyr de- 

 ceiptes. 



It v^ill be observed that the common spaniels of that period were the 

 particolours, but what Doctor Caius calls red was probably liver coloured, 

 that having always been a more common colour than red in the spaniel, so 

 that advocates of the lately installed Welsh spaniel will do well not to 

 take Doctor Caius's red and white spaniel as indicative of the early origin 

 of the dog lately given that name. The book was written at Cambridge, 

 and no mention is made of the red and whites as confined to the principality 

 or any section of England; he simply says they were the commonest-coloured 

 dog of all the spaniels. The marbled or blue-belton colour mentioned as 

 from France is in keeping with the note as to Gaston de Foix's description of 

 colour in the quotation from "The Master of Game." Black and tan is 

 also seen to be an old spaniel colour, and therefore not originating in the 

 Gordon setters or their immediate ancestors. 



Following close upon the time of Fleming's publication we come upon 

 a very excellent book written by Gervase Markham, 1567-1637, a very 

 voluminous writer on sporting subjects. We are not prepared to say that 

 all he wrote was original, for it was the custom to take whole chapters from 



