354 THE BOOK OF THE DOG. 



successors. His Grace lived about the year 1550, rather earlier than the date at which Dr. 

 Caius wrote, but beyond casual references to him by subsequent writers, nothing is positively 

 known of the system upon which he acted, though from the remarks made it is probable 

 that his ideas were closely carried out by the Setter breakers who came after him. 



The "Sportsman's Cabinet," in 1803, devotes a good deal of its space to the subject of 

 Setters, which had evidently by that time taken their rank as a distinct breed of sporting 

 dog. Whether, however, the author is quite correct or not in his assertion that " The dog 

 passing under this denomination [Setter] is a species of Pointer originally produced by a 

 commixtuie between the Spanish Pointer and the larger breed of English Spaniel," will 

 always be a matter of discussion between persons interested in the breed, as many are to be 

 found who deny the existence of the Pointer cross. This subject may, however, be abandoned 

 for the present, as our desire is now to trace the existence of the English Setter from its 

 first appearance down to modern periods, and at the same time draw what deductions we can 

 from contemporary writers concerning its appearance and value as a sporting dog. 

 Mr. W. Taplin, in the " Sportsman's Cabinet/' proceeds to remark subsequently to the 

 preceding quotation, that, " The sporting department of the Setter in the field precisely 

 corresponds with the pursuits and propensities of the Pointer, but with this single variation, 

 that admitting their olfactory sensations to be equally exquisite, and that one can discover 

 and as expeditiously receive and enjoy the particles of scent (or, in other words, the effluvia 

 of the game) as readily and at equal distance with the other, the difference of the sports in 

 which they are individually employed renders it necessary that one should effect upon his 

 legs what the other does by prostration upon the ground, in the very position from which 

 the present appellation of the ' setting dog ' is derived. And these are neither more nor less 

 than the pure effect of sporting education ; for as in shoooting with the Pointer the game is 

 constantly expected to rise, so in the use of a setting dog and net the game is required 

 to lie 



"Although the setting dog is in general used merely for the purpose of taking partridges 

 with the draw-net, yet they are sometimes brought into occasional use with the gun, and 

 are equally applicable to that appropriation, except in turnips, French wheat, standing clover, 

 ling, furze, or other covert, where their sudden drop and point may not be so readily 

 observed." 



Personally we attach very great importance to the above extract, for two reasons: first. 

 it is distinctly stated that up to that time Pointers were the fashionable, or rather the 

 favourite, breed with sportsmen who amused themselves by shooting three-quarters of a 

 century back ; and, secondly, it gives us a good reason for the change which has come over 

 the Setter's behaviour in the field of later years. It is, of course, perfectly well known that 

 the modern Setter usually points his game standing up, as a Pointer does, and the abandonment 

 of netting is unquestionably responsible for this alteration in the method of a Setter 

 carrying out his work. Before, when the sportsman was anxious to net as many birds as 

 he could, it was most essential that they should be as undisturbed as possible, 

 and the presence of a dog would, of course, increase the chances of their being 

 frightened away before the net was fixed for their capture. The chances of the dog being 

 seen by the game were naturally lessened when he lay down, and this, no doubt, was the 

 reason for his being broken to do so. Now things are much altered, and the sportsman only 

 wants the whereabouts of the game to be indicated, so that he may walk them up. There 



