The Irish Setter. 345 



bred in and in by the gamekeeper, Jemmy Fury, degenerated into 

 weeds. He especially mentions one, called Sylvie, which he 

 obtained from Charles Mahon, of Mount Pleasant, co. Mayo ; she 

 was a big bitch, beautifully feathered, very enduring and staunch, 

 and with her he hoped to resuscitate the Ahascragh strain. Owing, 

 however, to the death of his father, he abandoned the attempt. 

 Mr. Mahon purchased two dogs from Mr. Buchanan for Sir St. 

 George Gore, about the year 1838, which were wholly red in 

 colour, and this gentleman appears to have kept the whole coloured 

 almost, if not entirely, in his kennels. 



Mr. Baker, of Lismacue, co. Tipperary, was a firm adherent of 

 the red and white variety, and Mr. Mahon considers his breed a 

 particularly good one ; they had black noses, and were fine up- 

 standing dogs, selected with care, with good feathering and low 

 carriage of stern. 



My next informant was Mr. John Bennett, of Grange, King's 

 County, who hunted the county for over 30 years, and whose 

 recollection goes back to the early part of the present century. So 

 far back as the year 1835 he owned a light red bitch called Cora, 

 which he mated with a red dog, the property of the late Capt. 

 Vaughan, of Golden Grove, King's County, one of the O'Connor 

 breed, which, so far as he can recollect, were all red. Capt. 

 Vaughan had two brace of the strain in his kennels, and all these 

 were red with black noses, sterns carried low (a point then, as now, 

 highly valued), large sized and muscular. 



Mr. Bennett considers the O'Connor and Yelverton O'Keeffe's 

 strain of red and white setters the best he ever shot over. The 

 latter paid great attention to keeping them pure, and adhered 

 to the parti-coloured in preference to the whole coloured variety, 

 though, strange to say, the last of the race was a red dog in the 

 possession of the late Charley O'Keeffe of Parsonstown, son of 

 Yelverton O'Keeffe. This Mr. Bennett accounts for by Yelverton 

 O'Keefe's admission that he had used a red in his strain, having 

 bred from a handsome specimen in the possession of Long, a 

 coachmaker in Mary-street, Dublin, which had a cross of the 



