CHAPTER XVIII. 

 THE RETRIEVER. 



OUR retriever was produced when the British 

 sportsman found out that it was not good for his 

 pointer or setter to fetch his game, and that his 

 spaniel would not do this so well and quickly as a 

 bigger dog ; so the retriever became a necessity. 

 As a sporting dog, he is purely of modern growth. 

 In America it is still the fashion for the pointer and 

 setter to do the double duty of finding and standing 

 his game and bringing it to his owner who has shot 

 it. A dog that does this is no doubt useful, answers 

 the purpose of two dogs, and so keeps down the 

 kennel ; but the luxuriousness with which we are 

 surrounded will not take the latter into consideration, 

 and a man's kennel is incomplete without it includes 

 retrievers of one or other of the few varieties. 

 Again, in walking up the birds which is almost the 

 common procedure nowadays in the south of Eng- 

 land and other good partridge countries retrievers 

 .are required, and could not be done without, and so 



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