io6 The Dog Book 



as Jesse Sherwood, James Smith, C. T. Prince, G. C. Colburn, A. C. 

 Waddell, Von CuHn, and Everett Smith appearing on the first two pages, 

 and as we glance further we note such leaders' names as Wm. M. Tileston, 

 Dr. J. S. Niven, Major J. M. Taylor (with a tricombination of English, 

 Gordon and Irish bred by the enthusiast of the Laverack importations, 

 Mr. Charles H. Raymond), Dr. Aten of Brooklyn, E. F. Stoddard of Dayton, 

 George B. Raymond of Morris Plains, George Bird Grinnell, T. Foreman 

 Taylor, Edward Dexter, Garret Roach, H. C. Glover, E. A. Spooner, Wm. 

 Tallman, Leslie C. Bruce, Justus von Lengerke, Isaac Fiske, J. H. Whitman, 

 Jacob Glahn of Syracuse, and many others better known only to the older 

 generation of setter men than those we have picked out. It would be 

 impossible to imagine any of the above-named gentlemen, who are still 

 living, owning anything nowadays but of the purest breeding possible, yet 

 we copy from the records of but twenty-five years ago." 



With such evidence of mixed breeding in this country when so much 

 was known regarding the higher breeding of the setter abroad, and when 

 not only some of the choicest of the Laveracks had been here for some four 

 or five years, but Leicester, Dart, Rock and a whole host of the "blue 

 bloods" subsequently styled "Llewellyns" were spread about the country, 

 can we imagine anything else of England one hundred years ago than that 

 here and there was something akin to fancy breeding, that is, with an eye 

 to certain characteristics, while the majority indulged in cross-breeding 

 <]uite regardless of looks or type.? It stands to reason that such was the case, 

 and it is therefore only what is to be expected when we come to read the 

 only book which is really historical, "The Setter, by Edward Laverack." 

 His knowledge of the Setter dated from early in the last century, for he went 

 shooting in the Highlands when he was eighteen and in his introduction he 

 acknowledges to being seventy-three years of age, while the date of the 

 book is 1872, hence he must have had personal knowledge of setters from 

 about 18 1 5, and his statements are exactly in keeping with this very natural 

 conclusion of what must have been the case. 



It is only proper, however, to take authors a little more chronologically, 

 and we will begin with Daniels's " Rural Sports," published at the beginning 

 of the nineteenth century. From the references to this book in later publica- 

 tions one would infer that it contained a most valuable contribution to dog 

 history, but such is far from being the case, and what he says is without 

 practical value. What is valuable, however, is that it contains three 



