THE POINTER 



IN his beautiful monograph of the pointer, Mr. W. Arkwright, 

 of Sutton Scarsdale, has given to us material and research 

 which settles many things, and enables us to make up our 

 minds with sufficient certainty for our own satisfaction upon 

 many more. That is to say, any of us who take the trouble to 

 refer to Mr. Arkwright's pages will be able to form a judgment 

 for ourselves upon the origin of the breed, as well as upon the 

 tendency of breeders, for the last century. The author does not 

 propose to quote, as he would like to, from those pages. The 

 pointer is only one small item in a general book on shooting, 

 and this is what the author is bidden to write by his publisher. 



A great deal was known about the pointer before Mr. Ark- 

 wright took pen in hand, and the views about to be expressed 

 are considered opinions after reading that author's work, and 

 passing in mental review the breed as it has been known for 

 the last half-century. 



The author became possessed of his first pointer about 1860. 

 It was a gift, and came originally from the kennels of the Lord 

 Derby of that time. It was a coarse dog with a coarse stern, 

 so that if Devonshire men introduced foxhound blood in the 

 seventies they were not responsible for the coarse sterns, or not 

 entirely. 



Mr. William Arkwright holds that any foxhound blood is 

 bad ; it must therefore have tried him very highly when he 

 discovered that all pointers are the descendants of hounds. 

 Doubtless there is a difference between hounds, and possibly 

 the foxhound is the last kind one would wish a pointer to 

 resemble ; but, after all, a hound's business is to catch and kill, 



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