American Variations 5 



or thirty-nine articles bearing on how he looks. 

 And, as such, they are indifferent breeders — at 

 least of dogs. It is history that an American 

 plunges into breeding with smart confidence, 

 overdoes at the start, wearies about at the point 

 where he might learn something, and seeks an- 

 other novelty. To the Englishman, sport goes 

 with the land and breeding with the sport. If he 

 surpasses in his breeding, he is gratified. If 

 things go awry, he keeps on breeding just the 

 same. In England the landowner has most of 

 the sporting dogs. In America nine out of ten 

 pedigreed shooting dogs are bred and owned by 

 lawyers, merchants, and other townsmen who 

 shoot by sufferance or invitation on the lands 

 of other people. Breeding, even shooting, is an 

 amusement and an incident. It is lightly picked 

 up, lightly pursued, lightly forgotten. 



So the British are better breeders. Where we 

 have the advantage is in the abundance of game 

 — now, alas, becoming by degrees a scarcity — 

 free to almost anybody, a country of immense 

 extent, foxes which are wild animals, and the Bob 

 White, a bird upon which the field dog can ex- 

 hibit every quality, best to lie and trickiest to 

 hide of all shootable feathered creatures. 



In the evolution among pointers and setters 

 of a greater proportion of energy to weight, it 

 has sometimes happened that public trials have 



