POINTERS AND SETTERS 115 



when others have been judging, and has always been right. 

 The occasions arise only in those rare circumstances when the 

 scent is as good as can be, and the dog does things that only 

 the very best can do in the most favourable circumstances. 



Generally it is unsafe to form any opinions except by 

 comparing the work of one dog with that of another at the same 

 time and place. That is what field trials enable ; and it does 

 not follow that when only moderate work is done at them that 

 the doers are only ordinary. Field trials are often held in 

 conditions of scent and weather when the wise shooter would go 

 home. The competitors at these meetings are always picked 

 dogs at home, and have generally beaten " good trial horses " 

 before they show in public. But when shooters go to a trial 

 and unfavourably compare what they see there to experience 

 at home, they may be right, but whenever this comparison has 

 given them confidence enough to enter dogs the latter have 

 invariably been disgraced, unless they happened to be of field 

 trial winning blood. This really answers the question as to 

 what use these institutions are. 



On the other hand, it is by no means the most experienced 

 field trial men who have the best chance of victory, provided 

 the canine blood is the same for all competitors. 



What natural selection and the survival of the fittest has 

 done for the fox and other scent-hunting animals, field trial 

 selection has done for pointers and setters since the first public 

 trial was held in 1865. It is not contended that working dogs 

 have improved over the whole of this period, but the vast 

 superiority of the field trial breeds over others shows what all 

 would have declined to if it had not been for the institutions 

 that annually indicate the best. 



But during the last half-dozen years there has been a general, 

 and it is said unaccountable, lack of good brace work at the 

 field trials. The author has satisfied himself of the reason of 

 this strange lack of the highest exhibition of breaking at a time 

 when the dogs are higher broken and more credit is given for 

 breaking than ever before. This appears paradoxical, but the 

 fact is that the premium on high breaking has led to the choice 



