THE POINTER 127 



whatever sub-title he may claim, and consequently it follows 

 that pointers were evolved from dogs whose business was to 

 catch and kill. If, therefore, our dogs are sufficiently opposed 

 in instincts to their ancestors, there can only be a sentimental 

 objection to a perceptible external trace of hound. As a matter 

 of fact, half the pointers seen at field trials have too much 

 "point," and not one in fifty too little. No doubt it was the 

 tendency for the natural point to increase in every generation 

 that caused the sportsmen of Colonel Thornton's period (about 

 1800 A.D.) to cross with the foxhound. 



The pointer undoubtedly came to this country both from 

 France and Spain. The former was a light made and the 

 latter a heavy dog. They were apparently not related, but 

 both became the ancestors of the modern pointer. With all 

 this chance of cross breeding, our grandfathers do not appear 

 to have been satisfied, and were for ever trying other crosses 

 to improve their breeds. Colonel Thornton had a remark- 

 able dog by a foxhound, and other sportsmen had very 

 celebrated droppers that is, crosses between pointer and 

 setter. It came to be the fashion to think that these crosses 

 never perpetuated their own merit in the next generation, and 

 they got a bad name in consequence. Had this not been the 

 case, probably no pure bred setters or pointers would have 

 been handed down to us, and perhaps there were none so 

 handed on. It seems to the author that there must have 

 been ancestral reasons of the most imperative kind for the 

 differences as found in noted strains of pointers in the middle 

 of the nineteenth century. 



My experience has shown that cross breeding does not of 

 necessity imply equal degrees of cross blood in the offspring. 

 It never implies half and half; and although it generally 

 does mean cross breeding to some slight extent, that slight 

 cross can be eradicated in future generations by selection. 

 Of all means of selection by externals for blood, colour and 

 coat are the most trustworthy. It is exceedingly strange 

 that dogs of the same ancestry but of different colours can 

 be bred together for twenty generations and never blend 



