284 Silk and ScarleL 



Saffron. Mr. Morrell bought Saffron from George 

 Carter, and he was a wonderful favourite in the Old 

 Berkshire for his quickness, and perseverance in his 

 cast. Eleven of his stock were entered, and it was his 

 son Sportsman, a descendant through Sophy, of 

 Ducie's Bertram and Horlock's Baby, whom Clark 

 before the sale expressed his rapturous desire to 

 " follow across the Channel with a couple of bitches ;" 

 and strangely enough he was in the four-couple lot for 

 which Mons. de Bourxie gave 200 guineas. Sportsman 

 had a tremendous drive with him, and must always 

 have something to do, and even when he had been 

 fired in his stifle, he would be with them if he carried 

 his leg. The more direct blood of Assheton Smith's 

 Saffron by Belvoir Splendour from Parasol, (who ac- 

 companied George Carter to Tidworth) came strongly 

 into the kennel through his son Sunderland, whose 

 dam Gratitude was of Heythrop Gulliver and Yar- 

 borough Gambler extraction. Sunderland was re- 

 markably stout, and always at home twenty minutes 

 first after the hardest day, if he was not watched. He 

 broke his leg as a puppy ; but luckily he was out at 

 walk with a surgeon, who very soon brought matters 

 ^bout. He was a rich light tan, with a beautiful head 

 And shoulders, and in these points very much resem- 

 bled his half-brother Warwickshire Saffron, from whom 

 they bred a good deal at Badminton. Nearly all his 

 stock, of whom Mr. Morrell entered sixteen, might be 

 known by their rich tan smutty faces and peculiarly 

 broad intelligent foreheads ; but many of them died 

 of hereditary kidney disease, which killed the old dog 

 in his sixth season. Saffron and Splendour, his half- 

 brothers, were both very good : the former had a 

 beautiful style of flinging and threading his cover with 

 his head up ; and Splendour, who went to Ireland, was 

 also an especial finder, and with a much more beauti- 

 ful and ringing tongue, than either. The Old Berk- 

 shire still have Stickler (from Susan by Foljambe's 



