140 DOGS AND ALL ABOUT THEM 



a coat that would protect its wearer from the ill effects of 

 frequent immersion in water. 



It was when these efforts were most active namely about 

 the year 1850 that new material was discovered in a black- 

 coated dog recently introduced into England from Labrador. 

 He was a natural water-dog, with a constitution impervious 

 to chills, and entirely free from the liability to ear canker, 

 which had always been a drawback to the use of the Spaniel 

 as a retriever of waterfowl. Moreover, he was himself reputed 

 to be a born retriever of game, and remarkably sagacious. His 

 importers called him a Spaniel a breed name which at one 

 time was also applied to his relative the Newfoundland. 

 Probably there were not many specimens of the race in 

 England, and, although there is no record explicitly saying 

 so, it is conjectured that these were crossed with the English 

 Setter, producing what is now familiarly known as the black, 

 flat-coated Retriever. 



One very remarkable attribute of the Retriever is that 

 notwithstanding the known fact that the parent stock was 

 mongrel, and that in the early dogs the Setter type largely 

 predominated, the ultimate result has favoured the Labrador 

 cross distinctly and prominently, proving how potent, even 

 when grafted upon a stock admittedly various, is the blood 

 of a pure race, and how powerful its influence for fixing type 

 and character over the other less vital elements with which it 

 is blended. 



From the first, sportsmen recognised the extreme value of 

 the new retrieving dog. Strengthened and improved by the 

 Labrador blood, he had lost little if any of the Setter beauty 

 of form. He was a dignified, substantial, intelligent, good- 

 tempered, affectionate companion, faithful, talented, highly 

 cultivated, and esteemed, in the season and out of it, for his 

 mind as well as his beauty. 



It is only comparatively recently that we have realised how 

 excellent an all-round sporting dog the Retriever has become. 

 In many cases, indeed, where grouse and partridge are driven 



