ii6 The Dog Book 



Referring to the main stem table, we have six generations from Ponto 

 to Dash IL, a period of thirty-nine years, or an average of six and a half 

 years to a generation. According to that supposition Moll II. and Cora I. 

 were whelped about 1836. Turning to the table of spurs, we have Fred I. 

 recorded as whelped in 1853, by which time his dam, Moll II. was, accord- 

 ing to the foregoing computation, seventeen years old. We next come to a 

 veritable Sarah in brood bitches, the venerable Cora I. a full sister, possibly 

 a litter sister to Moll II. , and find that she was bred to this nephew of hers, 

 Fred I., about 1857, and when about twenty-one years of age, she produced 

 Cora II., dam of Dash II. who was whelped 1862. If any person desires 

 to believe these things possible we have no objection, but we do object to 

 any one thinking to overthrow the name of Laverack or disparage the great 

 benefit he was to the breed because his pedigrees will not scan. What difi^er- 

 ence did it make if Mr Laverack had simply stated that he had bred his 

 setters from 1825, starting with a brace he had obtained from the Rev. A. 

 Harrison, and interbred their progeny, that he had at various times tried 

 outcrosses with reputable strains, but had never had satisfactory results 

 and had come back to his old line again as closely as possible. The dogs 

 would have been just as good individually, Countess would still have been 

 the wonder she was, and there would have been no difference in the results 

 of the Dan cross on the Laverack bitches, nor of the Laverack dogs 

 on Dan*s sisters. Mr. Laverack's setters were good because he had 

 all the time been intent on their improvement, not because he gave 

 with them a string of names in various order back to Old Moll and her 

 consort Ponto. 



It has been said that Mr. Laverack only bred to supply his own wants 

 for shooting dogs, and then only when his brace in use were getting old did 

 he rear a litter, pick out a new brace and repeat the operation. The known 

 facts do not support this supposition, for he writes about many gentleman 

 having his strain of setters, and from the amount of shooting he did he must 

 have had a fairly well-filled kennel from which to draw his supply. Writing 

 to his friend Rothwell, when he was an old man, November, 1874, he tells 

 of having lost three puppies Rothwell had sent him, also six more and two 

 brood bitches, eighteen months old, for which he had refused fifty guineas 

 each, besides four more young dogs. Again in the first volume of the 

 English stud book we find seven setters registered in his name, fifteen dogs 

 bred by him registered as the property of others, and about twice as many 



