THE SETTER. 179 
There is as much difference in dogs’ faces as there is 
in that of men; and I should as much expect to find tha 
qualities of a Walter Scott, a Napoleon, or a Washington, 
in a being with the face of Hogarth’s bad apprentice or 
of a Jew prize fighter, as I should think to find a dog, 
with a cross, spiteful expression, a curt nose, thick jaws, 
and a narrow brow with a deep cleft between the eyes, a 
first-rate animal for intellect, memory and affection. 
For the rest, a pendulous jowl and hanging lip are a 
defect in a setter, as they are the reverse in a pointer. 
Medium-sized dogs are the best, both for endurance of 
work and for convenience of transportation ; besides which, 
I consider great size and heavy bone, especially if coupled 
with harsh coat, a symptom of coarse blood. 
A setter should be high and thin in the withers, snaky 
in the neck, roomy in the chest, long in the arms and 
quarters, short in the lower legs, round and cat-like in the 
feet, well fringed or feathered on belly and legs, and well 
furnished with pad and toe-tufts. The bone of his tail 
should be slender; however well, and it cannot be too well, 
feathered; his coat cannot be too soft and silky, nor can 
he, in all respects, be too beautiful. 
His beauty is a sign of the purity of his race; and in 
some sort—which I fear is rarely or never the case with 
us men—an indication of superior intellectual qualifica- 
tions; but then it must be remembered that, although 
every dog is, at one period of his existence, a puppy, one 
never has heard of a canine fop, or, except in the old 
fable, of one who used a looking-glass. 
The points of the Irish setter are a more bony, angular 
