THE RETRIEVER PROPER 105 



the pointer or setter, though there are some dogs of these latter breeds who seem 

 incapable of trying for anything but a body scent and they, of course, are useless 

 as retrievers. Some years ago I endeavoured to devise a plan of trying retrievers 

 in public, and in my experiments I used an old worn-out pointer, which happened 

 to be the only retrieving dog at hand. Constructing a trap on a tripod, which, 

 on pulling a string, would drop a bird with its wing feathers cut in a field of turnips 

 or other covert, I found the old dog invariably bring it to hand, although ori one 

 occasion the bird had reached the next field, fully three hundred yards from the 

 trap ; and, as the result of these private experiments, I produced the machine at 

 Vaynol in 1871, in full confidence that it would serve the purpose of the retriever 

 trials. But there the retrievers proper could do nothing with a winged partridge 

 dropped on turnips exactly as I had done in private, and if the bird happened 

 to get away more than fifty yards, the scent was very seldom taken up ; and if found 

 at all, the success was owing to perseverance in seeking at random, and to accident, 

 rather than nose. Mr. R. J. Lloyd Price's Devil, a curly liver-coloured dog, 

 apparently a cross between the Irish water- spaniel and the poodle, bred by Sir P. 

 Nugent, is the only dog I have ever seen perform in public to my satisfaction, 

 showing great perseverance in hunting, with a good nose, but not coming up to the 

 level of the old pointer above alluded to. With this exception, the best private 

 retrieving I have ever seen has been with crosses of the terrier and beagle ; for with 

 one of these little dogs I never yet lost either fur or feather, though of course he could 

 not carry a hare across a brook or over a gate. Still, we must take the world as we 

 find it, and the world now demands a retriever proper, black by preference, and 

 either wavy-coated or curly. 



In the early shows up to 1864, the classes for retrievers were open to all, and 

 it was not till after the second and third held at Birmingham that any decided 

 opinions began to be expressed. In 1860 the celebrated Wyndham was brought 

 out by Mr. R. Brailsford with success, and he was at once accepted as the type of 

 the wavy-coated strain, being apparently nearly or quite pure Labrador. Next year, 

 at Leeds, Wyndham was second to Mr. Riley's Sam, a curly-coated dog, of good 

 shape, but inferior to that gentleman's Royal, afterwards winner of several prizes in 

 England, and of the gold medal at Paris. In 1861 Mr. Riley again succeeded in 

 taking the first prize with his Cato, of about the same pretensions as Sam ; the 

 second prize being awarded to a curly-coated dog exhibited by myself, bred by Mr. 

 Whitbread's keeper at Cardington, with an admitted colley cross, and, though 

 handsome in shape, without any of the points which would now be demanded by the 

 judges of the strain, and notably deficient in that bareness of face at present 

 considered a sine qua non. At Islington in 1862 Mr. Riley's Royal was in high form ; 

 but at Birmingham in the same year Wyndham again came out first. In the 

 following year Mr. Hill bought Wyndham, and showed him with his Jet at 

 Islington, with which latter he took the first prize, Wyndham only getting the 

 third. In 1863 Wyndham came out as champion at Birmingham ; and, after these 

 ups and downs of the wavy and curly coats, the committee of the Chelsea Show 

 decided on dividing the retrievers into distinct classes, their example being followed 



