The Gordon Setter 199 



ment that the tricolour prevailed in the Gordon setters. "An old gentle- 

 man sportsman^ and one who has shot over the same breed for fifty years 

 and knev^^ them during his boyhood, assures me that the late Duke of Gor- 

 don, the Marquis of Anglesey, and several other noblemen had their 

 original stock of setters from the late Mr. Coke of Longford, and that the 

 colour was usually black, white and tan. Mine are descended from the 

 original breed of Mr. Coke, the Gordons Regent and Fan, and within the 

 last five years from a black, white and tan bitch which I got direct from 

 the Beaudesart kennels. 



" I am aware that there are black-tan setters which are not of the same 

 blood as the Gordon breed, and recollect crossing from one more than forty 

 years ago that was bred by the late Mr. Edge of Strelly. I also recollect 

 a clergyman having a pure breed of black-tans about that period. They 

 fetched high prices at Tattersall's, but were not sold as Gordon setters." 



"D" here enters the discussion again, and says that he was born within 

 nine miles of Gordon Castle and still resided there, and that in his neigh- 

 bourhood "it was as well known that there was a collie strain in some of 

 the Duke's dogs as that there was a strain in Lord Rivers's greyhounds." 

 Further than that he states specifically: "The duke got a clever colley 

 bitch (black and tan) from a farmer's son in the Streens, on the Findhorn. 

 The family are still on the farm, and, if necessary, I can get this statement 

 verified. He crossed the bitch with a setter, and next year sent a pup with 

 a five-pound note to the farmer's son. The farmer's son tried to make a 

 sheep dog of the pup, but he was useless." 



Mr. Adye in a rather discursive reply gives some very good information 

 as to some strains from which much of what is called Gordon blood came. 

 He is writing regarding a dog called Beau, whose placing at a recent show 

 had caused criticism. "His pedigree is clear and authentic on all sides for 

 some forty years, as he is descended from the two Gordons above alluded to. 

 Regent and Fan or Crop [Young Regent and Crop, sold to Lord Chester- 

 field at the sale of Gordon setters], and the black, white and tan breed of 

 the Marquis of Anglesea, who is well known to have kept his setters for 

 sixty years, pure and unmixed with any other blood. With regard to the 

 curl in Beau's coat, he derives that from the late A. W. Coke's black, white 

 and tan breed, most of which he used to say — at least the best — had the 

 curl. Mr. Coke always said the more curly the coat the better the dog. 

 The Marquis of Anglesea's were wavy-coated, with very long silky feather. 



