The English Setter. 297 



for them must have been well on to seventy years 

 ago. At that time, and for long after, the pedigrees 

 of dogs were of little value, and, so long as the strain 

 was good for work, and not bad to look at, people did 

 not care a jot what the blood was. Mr. Laverack, 

 however, had found that he could, by a few genera- 

 tions of judicious crossing, breed setters more true 

 to type than others had done. 



He was a sportsman, spent most of his time in 

 shooting and in sub-letting shootings, travelled 

 much in Scotland and the North of England, and so 

 became acquainted with the various strains of setters 

 then extant. Two or three years before his death 

 the present writer repeatedly met Mr. Laverack, and 

 a mutual admiration of the dog led to a considerable 

 interchange of ideas on the subject, and on setters 

 in particular. Although he would never acknowledge 

 any cross from the original Old Moll and Ponto, 

 which he had obtained from Mr. Harrison in 1825, I 

 am not quite certain such was not tried. There 

 were strains in the North of England that he valued 

 highly, and which, no doubt, he would find useful 

 for the purpose of putting vigour and size into his 

 puppies, for it is a little against nature to produce in 

 so short a time such good dogs as he owned by 

 breeding from brothers and sisters, as he did with 

 Dash I. and Belle the one a black and white, the 



