166 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPOETSMEN. 



year — I must agree with that agreeable sporting English 

 writer, " Craven," that " the first place among shooting 

 dogs must he awarded to the setter. 



" In style and dash of ranging, in courage and capa- 

 city of covering ground ; in beauty of form and grace of 

 attitude ; in variety of color and elegance of clothing ; 

 no animal of his species will at all bear comparison with 

 him." 



I will add that, in endurance of extreme fatigue ; in 

 supporting cold and wet ; in facing thorny brakes and 

 tangled covert ; in travelling with uninjured feet over 

 stony mountain ledges, across plains bristling with spiked 

 sword-grass, or over burnt coppices ragged with jags and 

 stubbs ; and generally in working, day in and day out, for 

 weeks, or through a season together, the setter distances 

 the bravest pointers I have ever seen. 



His temper too is usually milder, he is a more affec- 

 tionate and friendly dog — this praise is not, however, due 

 to the Irish variety, which is apt t > be savage — and is, in 

 my opinion, also a wiser and more intelligent and saga- 

 cious animal; although he is so much more frolicsome, 

 larking and high-spirited, that it is, undeniably, more diffi- 

 cult to keep him in command, and more necessary to rule 

 him with a strict hand and observant eye, than the pointer. 



For the made and complete sportsman, therefore, I 

 without a moment's doubt advise the adoption of the set- 

 ter, especially for America, where, or at least in the greater 

 part of which, almost all the shooting is either covert- 

 shooting or marsh-shooting ; for both of which branches 

 of sport I consider one setter as equal, for the quantity 



