CHAPTER XXVII. 

 THE COCKER. 



THIS, the smallest of our race of sporting spaniels, 

 is retrograding rather than progressing, and, hardy, 

 cheerful little dog though he be, sportsmen have 

 found that a bigger dog can do his duties better, 

 even to working rough covert, and it is not a general 

 thing for a cocker to retrieve a rabbit or a hare. 

 Indeed, some cockers I have had would not retrieve 

 at all, nor did I blame them, for retrieving is a duty 

 to be performed by a more powerful dog. 



The prizes offered for the cocker on the show 

 bench are not of particular value, nor do they carry 

 sufficient honour, to make it worth the while of any 

 one breeding him for such purpose alone, so, as a 

 matter of fact, this once favoured little dog is not 

 growing with the times in the manner a successful 

 concern ought to be. Only the larger exhibitions 

 give him classes of his own, and the prizes then do 

 not, as a rule, go to the genuine article. 



The cocker of the olden time I should take to be 



