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CHAPTER XLV. 







THE RUSSIAN SETTER. 



ANY book professing to refer to sporting dogs would, we think, be incomplete if no reference 

 were made by the author to the Russian Setter. This breed of dog is unquestionably rarely 

 met with in these islands, but some years ago his appearance made a considerable stir 

 amongst all followers of the gun. It is certain, too, that his services were in some quarters 

 called upon to improve the English Setter, and therefore, in spite of the dog's rarity in his 

 pure state, it is desirable that he should be treated of in a chapter by himself, though 

 necessarily the remarks concerning him will be very brief. 



Mr. Joseph Lang, writing to the Sporting Review in 1841, and dating from No. 7, Hay- 

 market, thus alludes to the Russian Setter : 



"In the season of 1839 I was asked for a week's shooting into Somersetshire by an old 

 friend, whose science in everything connected with sporting is first-rate. Then, for the first 

 time for many years, I had my English Setters beaten hollow. His breed was from pure 

 Russian Setters crossed by an English Setter dog, which some years ago made a sensation in 

 the sporting world from his extraordinary performances. . . . Although I could not but 

 remark the excellence of my friend's dogs, yet it struck me, as I had shot over my own old 

 favourite Setter (who had himself beat many good ones, and had never before been beaten) for 

 eight years, that his nose could not have been right, for the Russians got three points to his 

 one. I therefore resolved to try some others against them the next season, and having heard 

 a gentleman, well known as an excellent judge, speak of a brace of extraordinary young dogs 

 he had seen in the Yorkshire moors, with his recommendation I purchased them. I shot to 

 them in August last, and their beauty and style of performance were spoken of in terms of 

 high praise by a correspondent to a sporting paper. In September I took them into Somerset- 

 shire, fully anticipating that I should give the Russians the go-by, but I was again disappointed. 

 I found from the wide ranging of my dogs, and the noise consequent upon their going so fast 

 through the stubbles and turnips (particularly in the middle of the day when the sun was 

 powerful and there was but little scent) that they constantly put up their birds out of distance, 

 or, if they did get a point, that the game would rarely lie till we could get it. The Russians, 

 on the contrary, being much closer rangers, quartering their ground steadily, heads and tails up, 

 and possessing perfection of nose in extreme heat, wet, or cold, enabled us to bag double the 

 head of game that mine did. Nor did they lose one solitary wounded bird ; whereas, with 

 my own dogs I lost six brace the first two days of partridge shooting, most of them in standing 

 corn. 



" My friend having met with a severe accident while hunting last season, I determined to 

 go to Scotland for the next three years. Seeing that my dogs were well calculated for grouse 

 shooting, as they had been broken and shot to on the moors, and being aware of my anxiety 

 to possess his breed of Russians, he very kindly offered to exchange them for mine, with a 



