THE IRISH SETTER 161 



mercy of this setter ; but he had a peculiarity often to be found 

 in those of his race he would only hunt for blood, and con- 

 sequently out of the shooting season he was as useless as an 

 ill-broken, careless puppy. He would run up birds without 

 appearing to smell them before they rose, or to see them after- 

 wards. Instead of waiting on your every wish, as he did in the 

 shooting season, he took no interest whatever in the proceedings, 

 and you could not cheat him into believing business was meant 

 by the use of blank or any other cartridges. It is easy to 

 defend such a characteristic in individual or race on the ground 

 that it shows their sense. So it does, no doubt, but it also 

 shows that the questing instinct is weak in them, and there are 

 good reasons for preferring it to be very strong. The breaking 

 season is the spring, and a dog that will not hunt for all it is 

 worth then cannot be broken. As a matter of fact, only few 

 Irish setters ever are highly finished. More than half of those 

 that have come to field trials have been unsafe in the abode 

 of a hare. At the same time, those that are taken to spring 

 field trials hunt well enough, but of course these are a very 

 small proportion. 



In popular opinion the greatest fault is that the race carry 

 low heads ; at the same time, this carriage does not invariably 

 mean bad " noses." The writer has seen an Irish setter turn a 

 complete somersault over its own nose, which it ran against a 

 stiff furrow of a fallow field ; but this one had a good nose, 

 although not the very best. The author was judging one year 

 at the National Field Trials with Mr. George Davies, of 

 Retriever fame, when Colonel Cotes' fast and good pointer Carl 

 was sent off against an Irish setter belonging to Mr. Cheetham. 

 The latter never lifted his nose in hunting or in drawing to 

 game more than would miss the buttercups, but nevertheless, 

 from behind, he again and again found partridges that the other 

 dog, much nearer, had failed to detect. Carl was very fast and 

 the Irish setter very slow, but the former was beaten pointless. 



There is a fiction that Irish setters are faster than other 

 dogs, but this is not the case. It is much more usual to see 

 them out-paced, as in the above-named instance. It may be 

 ii 



