THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



There is a useful Setter in Germany, 

 which differs very little from our ordinary 

 brown Retriever, both in regard to the 

 shape of his head and the texture of his 

 coat. Usually he is liver-coloured, or white 

 with large liver-coloured patches. His chief 

 point of difference from the English Retriever 



M. j. BAUSSART'S FRENCH "SPANIEL" 

 MEDOR DE SANVIC. 



is that his ears are of great size. The 

 Russians, while preferring the English or 

 the Gordon Setter for work with the gun, 

 nevertheless have a variety of their own. 

 British sportsmen who have known them in 

 their native country have reported that for 

 all kinds of shooting the Russian Setter is 

 not to be equalled in nose, sagacity, and 

 every other necessary quality that a sporting 

 dog ought to possess. 



Mr. William Lort, writing of them some 

 years ago, described them as follows : 



" Roughly speaking, in appearance this 

 dog is rather like a big, ' warm ' Bedlington 

 terrier. There are two varieties of the 

 breed, and, curiously enough, they are dis- 

 tinguished from each other by the difference 

 in their colour. The dark-coloured ones are 

 deep liver and are curly-coated. The light- 

 coloured ones are fawn, with sometimes 

 white toes and white on the chest ; some- 

 times the white extends to a collar on the 

 neck. These latter are straight-coated, not 

 curly like the dark ones. My recollection 



of the breed extends back some fifty years, 

 and the last specimen I owned of it a 

 light-coloured one I gave away to a 

 friend who would not take a hundred 

 pounds for it. 



" Their noses never seem to be affected by 

 a change of climate ; hence their value in 

 my eyes. I have worked with 

 them in September's sun and in 

 January's snow, and they were 

 equally good. They were some 

 of the best dogs I ever had, 

 and never varied ; and under 

 exceptional cases as regards 

 the weather, we always had 

 the Russians out. The one 

 fault I found with them was 

 the difficulty in getting new 

 blood, for those we had showed 

 evidences of scientific breeding, 

 and a strict adherence to 

 type. The fact that they 

 were successfully crossed, to 

 my knowledge, with English 

 Setters, satisfies me that they 

 are really Setters and not an 

 alien breed. I may add that 

 they are excellent water dogs." 



RETRIEVERS . 



The so-called Russian Retriever may be 



mentioned in this connection. In appear- 

 ance it is not unlike the Setter of its own 

 country, with a suggestion of the Irish 

 Water Spaniel superadded. He is a square- 

 built dog square in muzzle, and wide in 

 skull, short headed,' cloddy in body, and 

 long on the leg. The chief peculiarity of 

 the breed is its dark-brown coat, which is 

 long and dense, and as often as not matted. 

 This makes him unsuited for work in covert. 

 Retrieving dogs are not often used by 

 Muscovite sportsmen, however, and even 

 the Spaniel is not popular in Russia. English 

 Retrievers, recognised as such, are some- 

 times employed in France and Germany ; but 

 there are no native breeds especially trained 

 for the retrieving of game and for that work 



alone. 



POINTERS. 



Of the Pointer, or Braque, there are many 



