Judging Field Trials 129 



been advanced heretofore, I think the time has 

 come when new theories should be introduced to 

 practical working methods, to acquire the purpose 

 of a specialty club, i.e., advancement of the breed. 



"As bench shows are now conducted, a useless 

 dog for all purposes may become a prominent 

 champion. The same principle applying to field 

 trials, inasmuch as the most wretched specimen in 

 form may acquire high honors there, and how does 

 either one advance the breed in the broad sense of 

 the term? 



"With a view to overcoming what is now a radical 

 wealviiess (from this standpoint), I propose in- 

 troducing at the next quarterly meeting of the 

 National Beagle Club, a scoring system for reduc- 

 ing each dog's field and bench qualities to an aver- 

 age, thereby establishing and recording each dog's 

 actual merit in both forms, winners, losers and all. 

 Under such a system each entry at trials w^ill be 

 first scored for its actual bench-show merit by a 

 practical judge of such form, then the dog to pass 

 into the hands of judges for field-trial quality form 

 and each dog scored at termination of heat. Those 

 scoring above a certain average (for field work) 

 to pass into 2nd series, the same to apply for 3rd 

 series, with a higher average. The winners of each 

 class to be those scoring the highest combined aver- 



