i8 Modern Breaking 



breeds of setters, as well as between setters and 

 pointers. The points of superiority generally 

 claimed for the pointers are their ability to 

 stand heat, go without water, and escape being 

 loaded down and stuck up with burs that soon 

 mat a setter's feather and long coat. Pointers 

 as a class have the pointing instinct more 

 highly developed, are more easily broken, remem- 

 ber their training better, and are not so hard to 

 control. Setters, on account of their more 

 abundant coat, have an advantage in wet, cold 

 weather or in facing brambles and briars in a 

 rough country. They have usually more dash, 

 vim and energy, do not thicken up so quickly 

 with age, and improve in their work from 

 year to year. 



There are, of course, individual exceptions, 

 and some pointers will face brambles and thick- 

 ets, take to water and work in cold, stormy 

 weather as courageously as any setter; and 

 there are setters which are seemingly as little 

 affected by heat and can go as long without 

 water as the best pointer. A setter's coat or 

 feather can be clipped so that burs will not 

 stick to it, and in warm countries, where burs 

 are most in evidence, the setter's coat, in a 

 generation or two, is scarcely heavier than the 

 most satin-skinned pointer. In disposition, 

 pointers are not quite so affectionate and com- 

 panionable as setters, and show some of the 



