The Retriever 321 



paintings of two more of his champions, states that with this team he not 

 only won the special for the best team of retrievers at the Crystal Palace, 

 but also that for the best team of sporting dogs of any breed. Mr. Cooke 

 writes: "I often wonder how it is that the Americans have not taken up 

 the flat-coated retriever, as they have setters and the pointer. Retrievers 

 are the most useful of all sporting dogs for modern shooting." The answer 

 to that is that we have not adopted English modern shooting methods in 

 this country, with the exception of battue shooting at a few isolated pre- 

 serves, and there they have retrievers. We have lately been advised that 

 a number of retrievers have been recently imported for use in some of the 

 Southern preserves, but throughout the country at large Americans prefer 

 the setter or pointer broken to retrieve as well as point and back. To show 

 the hold they have in England as a sporting dog, Mr. Cooke says he has 

 bred them for over twenty-five years, and always for work as well as show. 



We were struck with a remark of Lee in "Modern Dogs" regarding 

 "other retrievers," where he says: "The latter [brown retrievers] are 

 repeatedly produced from black parents, are very handsome, and equally 

 useful as any other. Personally I have a great fancy for this pale or choco- 

 late-brown wavy-coated retriever. He is a novelty, and, if he shows dirt 

 more than his black parents, his coat is equally glossy and he is quite as 

 good tempered and sociable. The white or pale primrose-coloured eye 

 is objectionable in this variety, as it is in the black." The suggestion 

 may be far fetched, perhaps, but if these retrievers of England owe much 

 of their blood to the Labrador line, and we are to accept the accredited 

 story of the Chesapeake Bay dog as originating from the Newfoundland 

 dogs that came from the wrecked vessel which, according to one account, 

 was abandoned at sea, and by another, ran ashore near the residence of a 

 Mr. Law on the Chesapeake, then the colour was not entirely owing 

 to their being crossed on the native tan-coloured hounds, which is ex- 

 Mayor Latrobe's claim. The Englishmen have not used the common 

 "yellow-and-tan" hound to get the colour they occasionally come across, 

 with the objectionable light eye we also find in so many Chesapeakes. 



The retriever not being a dog used or likely to be used in this country 

 to any great extent, it is not necessary to dwell upon his description, that 

 being given in detail in the standards of the two varieties. That of the curly 

 coated was adopted by the English club which was formed in 1890, and the 

 latter is from Lee's "Modern Dogs," based upon Stonehenge's description. 



