824 THE VETERINARY DOCTOR. 
of certain breeds of hounds was limited by royal edict to those of royal 
blood and others who enjoyed the privilege by special grant from the crown. 
Dogs which were permitted to persons of lower degree were also the sub- 
jects of special legislation, and if caught in the forests were mutilated by 
the keepers by having some of their toes struck off to prevent them from 
running the king’s deer. As the more liberal spirit of modern times abol- 
ished the feudal laws, dogs in all varieties became the property of all who 
chose to breed or keep them, but their employment in field sports is still 
possible only to those who own or rent shootings, as the right to game _ has 
not yet been made a popular one. There has heen a great outcry of late 
over the restriction of game to the wealthy class,and doubtless this is in some 
respects a hardship, but it is also certain that, if thrown open to the public, 
field sports in Great Britain will soon become a thing of the past, since, 
from the demands of agriculture and the density of the population, game 
can only be kept up by artificial propagation and protection, entailing a 
heavy expense which wealthy men will not undertake when the sole nght 
to the game is taken from them, and which the public cannot afford. Even 
as things are now, the use of pointers and setters has been almost discontin- 
ued over a large portion of England, as high farming has stripped the land 
of most of its cover for game, and the birds, from being constantly disturbed, 
have become so wild they will not lie to point. The moors of Scotland and 
Wales afford the best opportunities for shooting over pointers and setters, 
though on some of the large estates in England they are still used for 
partridges. 
Foreign pointers and setters are not allowed to retrieve, which necessi- 
tates the employment of a special breed for this purpose. At English 
shows there are classes for black and other than black retrievers. The 
former are the better Jiked for general work, and are divided into wavy and 
curly coated. Both are descended from the Labrador or lesser Newfound- 
land, either pure or cross-bred to the setter. Stonehenge says, “in the belief 
that the nose of the pure Labrador is inferior to that of the setter, 
I certainly should advise the cross-bred dog for use; but to be suc- 
cessful upon the show bench, the competitor should display as little as possi- 
ble of the setter’ Size, to give them strength, is an essential in these 
dogs. Two noted prize winners were Mr. Gorse’s Wyndham, wavy coated, 
and Jet, curly coated. They weighed eighty-five and seventy pounds re- 
spectively. The class for other than black includes the liver-colored dog 
sometimes found in litters from black parents, the color indicating span- 
iel-cross. All these dogs, as well as the Irish water spaniel, are used for 
wild-fowl retrieving, and in Scotland, for trailing up wounded deer, the 
colly, pure or cross-bred, «livides public favor with the deerhound. 
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