102 The Dog Book 



certain dogs for certain sports receives a very strong endorsement by that 

 eminent engraver, S. Howitt, whose illustrations of sports are recognised 

 as masterpieces. Very unfortunately in our copy of the extremely rare 

 volume of seventy-tw^o of his engravings which form the " British Sportsman" 

 that of the setter is one of the two missing illustrations, but this is fully 

 atoned for by those representing netting and the five sports treated of in the 

 poem on fowling. 



As further showing that the term setter applied perhaps as much to the 

 dog that set or pointed as to the breed, we give Sydenham Edwards's group 

 showing the setter as one of the family of spaniels. The colours of these 

 four spaniels are: liver and white, the one to the left; black and white, the one 

 lying down; lemon and white, the one sitting; but the far one is quite an 

 indefinite colour, one that an Irish-setter enthusiast would claim as repre- 

 senting that breed, and possibly it may. It is undoubtedly high on the leg 

 and of setter formation and is self-coloured, neither liver nor lemon, so that 

 we are perfectly satisfied to regard it as an Irish setter. We have several 

 of Sydenham Edwards's coloured engravings and all are exceedingly faithful 

 in drawing, so that we can without hesitation accept anything he did as 

 faithfully representing the animals indicated by the title of the engraving. 

 The date of "The Spaniel" is January i, 1801. 



The Three Breeds of Setters: English, Irish, and Gordon 



Four years later Sydenham Edwards published another engraving 

 entitled "The Setter," in which he very distinctly shows the English, Irish, 

 and Gordon setters as shown herewith. This engraving is coloured, as is 

 the case of all we have seen by Edwards, so that, although it is not very 

 clearly indicated in the reproduction, we can, on the original, see that the 

 farther black dog has tan markings on the lips, the centre one is red, with 

 white blaze, and the near one is white. This engraving we take to indicate 

 clearly that these were recognised as the three varieties of the setter and 

 that they were thoroughly established at that time, although very little 

 evidence is forthcoming in books of the period. 



Through the courtesy of Mr. Cunningham, of Philadelphia, we have 

 had the pleasure of seeing an exquisite painting by Desportes, court painter 

 to Louis XIV. Vero Shaw in "The Book of the Dog" gives a copy of 

 Desportes's painting of "Dogs and Partridges," showing three sparsely 



