DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPANIEL. 429 



quests; nor should they open at any other time. Some sportsmen disapprove of their questing 

 at all, as it spreads the alarm too far, therefore teach them to beat mute. As it is the nature 

 of these dogs to put up all the game they find, good sportsmen are careful to keep them 

 within gun-shot even if in cover, and if it is extensive, jingles or bells are put upon their 

 collars, and the dog-call used "if they beat too wide." 



From these remarks it appears that the uses of the Spaniel in 1800 were very similar to 

 those to which they - are put in the present day ; and a distinct advance had been made in 

 the century which had elapsed since the time when Nicholas Cox delivered his remarks upon 

 the breed. Now-a-days they are not used as finders for Greyhounds, but in many other respects 

 there is little change in their mode of hunting. 



W. Taplin, writing in the "Sportsman's Cabinet," in 1803, says that 



" The large Springing Spaniel, and diminutive Cocker, although they vary in size, 

 differ but little in their qualifications, except that the former does not equal the latter in 

 rapidity of action ; nor do they seem to catch the scent so suddenly, or to enjoy it with 

 the same ecstatic enthusiasm when found. . . . From the time they are thrown off in 

 the field, as a proof of the pleasure they feel in being employed, the tail is in perpetual 

 motion (which is termed feathering), upon the increasing vibration of which, the experienced 

 sportsman well knows when he is getting nearer the object of attraction. . . . However 

 Spaniels may be occasionally engaged in other sports, they are, in general, considered much 

 more applicable to shooting in covert than to those pursuits in which the Pointer or Setter 

 are more properly engaged. . . . 



" The whole species are naturally inclined to voracity, but are capable of enduring very 

 long abstinence, of which there are numerous well-authenticated instances upon record. The 

 following is, perhaps, the most extraordinary fact of this description that has ever issued from 

 the press. In 1789, when preparations were making at St. Paul's for the reception of his 

 Majesty, a favourite Spaniel bitch followed its master up the dark stairs of the dome, when of a 

 sudden it was missing, and both calling and whistling was of no effect. Nine weeks after this, 

 wanting only two days, some glaziers were at work in the cathedral, and distinctly heard 

 some faint sounds amongst the timbers by which the dome was supported, and thinking it 

 might be some unfortunate human being, they tied a rope round a boy and let him down 

 near to the place from whence the noise came. At the bottom he found a dog lying on its 

 side, the skeleton of another dog, and an old shoe half-eaten." The rest of the story may 

 be briefly told as follows the bitch when lost was in whelp, and, no doubt, consumed her 

 puppies when she brought them forth, and, possibly, also the remains of the other dog, 

 who presumably had followed her into the cathedral. Her emaciated appearance, however, 

 pointed to the extreme privations which she had undergone, a further proof of which was to 

 be found in her weight, for when last scaled she drew twenty pounds, but when recovered the 

 poor beast only weighed three pounds fourteen ounces. 



In 1814 Mr. William Dobson, of Eden Hall, Cumberland, published a work on the 

 breaking of Pointers and Spaniels. " Kunopaedia," for that is the title, however, seemed to 

 recognise the Spaniel as the Setter, as the former breed is not directly alluded to by the 

 author. This would tend to prove that, subsequently to the writings of Sydenham Edwards 

 and William Taplin, sportsmen of conservative tendencies still regarded the Spaniel and the 



