The English Setter 117 



more bred from his dogs by other persons. It must also be understood that 

 it never has been the custom to register dogs so freely in England as we do 

 in this country, but it is left to the kennel club to enter free of charge all 

 winners at field trials or at dog shows held under certain rules of the club. 

 Hence Mr. Laverack's registered dogs were winners, and not one of his 

 breeding stock was registered, as is the custom with us. Neither can we 

 admit that his stud dogs were for the free use of every friend who wanted to 

 breed to one of them. We do not say that he went into the business of 

 breeding and selling to the extent that Mr. Llewellyn subsequently did, but 

 there was no restriction of his operations merely for his own use. What 

 improvement could a man possibly make by breeding a litter every six or 

 seven years for fifty years .? A breeder seeking to improve and build up a 

 strain must have a surplus of stock for selection and only breed on from the 

 best, so that we are forced to the conclusion that Mr. Laverack used a good 

 many intermediate crosses not tabulated in his pedigrees, and felt his way 

 along until he had his strain well established and universally acknowledged 

 as of great merit. 



Shortly after Mr. Laverack's book appeared, the talented editor of the 

 London Field, the late Dr. J. H. Walsh, whose nom de plume of "Stone- 

 henge" had world-wide fame, undertook a fourth edition of his "Dogs of 

 the British Islands," and in this edition he personally wrote the sections on 

 the setters, which were vast improvements on what appeared in prior 

 editions written by contributors. This edition appeared in 1877 and 

 covers the flush times of the Laveracks and the start of the "Llewellyns." 

 Dr. Walsh knew greyhounds, setters and pointers better than he knew any- 

 thing in the sporting world and, whenever he could, attended the field trials, 

 and kept thoroughly in touch with what was going on. What he wrote is 

 therefore " hot from the grid " compared with the fading recollections we 

 have of what took place in England from 1876 to 1880. During the greater 

 part of that period we contributed to the Field, knew Dr. Walsh personally 

 and brought back to America an autograph letter accrediting us as his 

 paper's representative at the New York dog show in 1880. This letter was 

 immediately begged by Mr. Tileston, the Westminster Kennel Club's 

 secretary, who, poor fellow, was killed the week prior to the date set 

 for the show by the fall of the west wall of the old Madison Square 

 Garden structure. 



