170 MANUAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 
dray-horse, have desired the breeder to cross a jenny ass 
with an elephant to give size, and then to recross the pro- 
geny with a bear in order to gain courage and a hairy coat. 
The truth, and it is now generally admitted—certainly 
admitted by all physiologists and natural historians—is, that 
except the spaniel, the setter is the oldest and purest of 
all the sporting breeds. In fact it is, itself, neither more 
nor less than a spaniel of the largest size, cultivated by 
the selection of the best types for parents, by superior 
food, good housing, and judicious crossing, not with dif 
erent varieties of the dog, but with various families of its 
own distinct variety, until it has been brought nearly to 
perfection. 
The habit of setting or pointing its game, which is now 
an instinctive and natural qualification of its race, was 
originally an acquired trick, taught by diligent breaking. 
Centuries of tuition have rendered that acquired trick an 
hereditary gift, so much so, that no good judge of animals 
would now think a young setter worthy of being put into 
the breaker’s hands, if he did not point naturally and 
without instruction. 
This conversion of foreign and acquired tricks into 
hereditary and congenital powers, transmitted from sire to 
son, is extraordinary; but this is by no means its most 
extraordinary phase. Every sportsman, who has kept and 
reared families of pointer puppies—in which variety, as I 
have said before, this retention of acquired habits is even 
more common than in the setter—must often have observed 
the whelps, under four months of age, when no instruction 
has ever been given them, uor have they acquired any 
