I20 The Dog Book 



being owners of both sorts. At the American shows both sorts have ap- 

 peared, and the Rhoebe blood has always beaten the Laverack. At field 

 trials no Laverack has been entered, but first, second and third prizes were 

 gained at their last field trials, in the champion stakes, by dogs of the Rhoebe 

 blood, all descended from Mr. Llewellyn's kennels." In the first place, the 

 same men did not own the setters named, Mr. L. H. Smith, of Strathroy, 

 Ont., being the only one to possess representatives of each lot. As to the 

 wins, the first champion stakes of record, run in 1876, had Drake, Stafford 

 and Paris placed in that order. Drake was bred by Mr. Luther Adams 

 and was by the Laverack dog Prince, out of Dora, who was bred by Mr. 

 Statter and was by Duke out of Rhoebe. A very strange record of breeding 

 to claim to have come from Mr. Llewellyn's kennels. Stonehenge very 

 pertinently remarks that as the two strains had not met afield there was no 

 indication of superiority, and that without any definite knowledge he was 

 quite prepared to admit superiority on the bench, as the Laverack dogs 

 were heavy and lumbering, and the bitches, "though very elegant, too 

 small and delicate for perfection." 



Going on to discuss merits of the field trials performers as shown 

 in England, Stonehenge says: "Now, although I have always regarded 

 Duke himself as on the whole a good dog, especially in pace and range, 

 and have estimated Dan and Dick, the result of his cross with Mr. Statter's 

 Rhoebe, favourably, as compared with the Laverack litters as shown in 

 Bruce and Rob Roy, yet I never considered Dan as a good cross for the 

 Laverack bitches, because his sire always showed a want of nose similar 

 to the Laveracks themselves. Duke is said by 'Setter,' and I believe cor- 

 rectly, to have received a high character from Mr. Barclay Field for his 

 nose as exhibited in private, but he was notoriously deficient in this quality 

 when brought before the public, going with his head low and feeling the 

 foot rather than the body scent. In proof of this defect it is only necessary 

 to say that he was beaten by Hamlet and Young Kent in this quality at 

 Bala, in 1867, when the judge gave him only thirty-one out of a possible 

 forty for nose, while at Stafi^ord in the following spring Rex found birds 

 twenty yards behind the place where he had left his point, thereby gaining 

 the cup, Sir V. Corbett, the breeder of Duke, being one of the judges and 

 loud in his admiration of Rex's nose, while finding fault with that of Duke. 

 Indeed, this defect was always made the excuse for E. Armstrong's con- 

 stant interference with him by hand and voice — ^whether rightly or wrongly 



