198 The Dog Book 



Later on he tells of sending back one of his pointers which he had promised 

 as a present. It does not seem possible that he never saw any setters at 

 Gordon Castle or at any of the other noblemen's or landed proprietors' 

 establishments he visited, but he is mute as to dogs, except for the most 

 casual remark here and there. 



Stonehenge seemed to be of the opinion that the ancestors of the 

 Gordon strain came from Ireland, but there was no need to introduce the 

 reds to get the tan, for black and tan is one of the old setting spaniel colours, 

 Caius before 1576 wrote regarding spaniels that "Othersome of them be 

 reddishe and blackishe, but of that sort there be very few." Markham 

 in the early part of the seventeenth century said that " the black and fallow 

 are esteemed the hardest to endure." The Rev. Mr. Simons in 1776 wrote 

 as follows: "Whatever mixtures may have been since made, there were, 

 fifty years ago, two distinct tribes — the black-tanned and the orange or 

 lemon and white." 



These extracts from early writers dispose of any idea that this com- 

 bination of colour originated at Gordon Castle, besides which, from a 

 number of letters which appeared in the Field about forty years ago, it is 

 very certain that, as we have already suggested, the Duke of Gordon had 

 no specific colour rule to breed to. We give a few extracts from letters 

 which appeared in that London newspaper. 



A Mr. Bastin had asked for information as to the name of the dog from 

 which the black and tan Gordons had descended, stating that he meant a 

 black, white and tan dog. This opened the gates for a flood of information. 

 Francis Brailsford, a family name well known to this day among field 

 trials men, said that the dogs of the late Duke were invariably black, white 

 and tan. "J. C. S." said the same, and that he had had one of the breed 

 years ago. "D." told the story of how the Marquis of Huntly, as the 

 Duke then was, got a black and tan collie bitch from a shepherd who lived 

 on the Findhorn and bred her to one of his best dogs, and that some of the 

 litter were black and tan. The name of this collie was Maddy, and she 

 was known to be remarkably clever in finding grouse. She did not point 

 them but "watched them." 



English Owners of Black and Tans and Tricolors 



Mr. Samuel Brown, of Melton Mowbray, a gentleman who is referred 

 to repeatedly by the best known writers on the breed, confirmed the state-^ 



