Judging Field Trials 133 



Mr. H. V. Jamieson, of Melrose, Massachusetts, 

 opens the argument in reply to Mr. Kreuder's ideas 

 of the point system with: "The scoring of beagles 

 systematically as to their actual worth in points, 

 standard form and field merits being both consid- 

 ered in the final results obtained. The system is a 

 most praiseworthy one if the millennium is Avith us 

 at last, and we are about to realize perfection. I, 

 for one, would gladly see this system adopted if 

 such is the case. But what is expected to be ob- 

 tained from the deduction of the two sets of com- 

 petent judges? Evidently not any useful results, 

 but simply a certificate of merit that will say a dog 

 w^as awarded the first prize because it was the best- 

 formed dog and showed the best hunting sense com- 

 bined at that stated time. But we may not have 

 a dog's true worth even then. There may have 

 been better fielders and poorer-formed dogs, or 

 vice versa, among the other prize winners, and we 

 have therefore given the prize certificate to a dog 

 of mediocrity and not of perfection in either de- 

 partment of its supposed usefulness to the breed 

 as a progenitor. We can never look back on that 

 dog as a type in any case; it simply was the con- 

 necting link between field merit and 'standard 

 form.' 



"Let me illustrate my point by figures: Sup- 



