Same American Sporting Dogs. 



623 



BLACK AND WHITE SETTER " GUY MANNERING." WINNER OF THE SCOTT SPECIAL PRIZE 

 FOR BEST "NATIVE ENGLISH" SETTER AT THE CENTENNIAL BENCH-SHOW. (OWNED BY 

 DUDLEY OLCOTT, OF ALBANY. N. Y.) 



pitted against each other on their game, and judgment given 

 through a certain scale of merits and demerits : they are awarded 

 points for pointing their birds, for stanchness, pace, style, backing, 

 and retrieving ; or, deprived of them, for flushing birds, for backing, 

 or for refusing to drop to shot or wing. It is obvious, however, 

 that in the limited time allowed for a "trial," that the best dog 

 might not always have the same opportunities to show his qualities 

 as one his inferior. Still, when the rules shall have been perfected, 

 the field trial will be a satisfactory test of the qualities of a dog for 

 the purposes required. 



Setters are divided into three classes, the English, Irish, and 

 Gordon ; these being usually divided again, at bench-shows, into 

 native and imported classes. It is principally over the English 

 setters — and the term is supposed to include those of every color 

 but red, which would indicate Irish blood, and black-and-tan, which 

 is the color of the Gordons — that the fight has been carried on, one 

 side claiming that the native dog — that is, one whose pedigree 

 could not be traced directly to some imported celebrity — was a 

 mongrel, and the other maintaining with equal persistency that the 

 •' blue blood," or imported dogs, were utterly unfit for our work, 

 and that the careful but in many instances "in and in" breeding had 

 resulted in deterioration. Of course both sides were, to a certain 

 extent, right; but, ;h is usual in violent partisanship, overeagerness 

 had carried the matter beyond solid argument, and the outsider was 

 left as much as ever in the dark. It must be admitted that, until 



