The English Setter 113 



however, are pure white, and it is not unusual to find several whelps in every 

 litter possessed of one or two pearl eyes. Their heads are longer in pro- 

 portion to their size, and not so refined looking as those of the English setter. 

 Sterns are curly and ctubbed; with no fringe to them, and the tail swells 

 out in shape something like an otter's. This breed is more useful than any 

 spaniel, for it is smart, handy, with an excellent nose and can find with 

 tolerable certainty at the moderate pace it goes. It usually has the habit of 

 beating close to you, and is not too fast, being particularly clever with cocks 

 and snipe, which they are no more likely to miss than is a spaniel." 



The Laveracks and Their Breeding 



It is very unfortunate that Mr. Laverack confines his comments on 

 his own strain to a mere description of their general appearance, or what 

 he aimed at in his breeding, and gives us no details as how he started the 

 strain or how he progressed. He illustrates his book with likenesses of 

 Old Blue Dash, Dash II., and Fred. IV. It is very tantalizing after 

 reading about the other strains to find nothing about the one we desire 

 most of all to learn how it was built up. What we do know on this score 

 is that in 1825 he obtained from the Reverend A. Harrison, who resided near 

 Carlisle, two setters, Ponto and Old Moll, and to these two dogs alone he 

 traced back the Laverack setters. Mr. Harrison had kept his strain for 

 thirty-five years and carefully guarded their breeding all that time, so that 

 accepting the pedigrees of the Laveracks of 1870-80 as correct, the breed 

 was in existence for nigh upon one hundred years. Mr. Laverack mentions 

 Mr. Harrison but once, when, in naming the three most perfect setters he 

 had ever seen, he selected Lord Lovat's black, white and tan dog Regent, 

 General Wyndham's Irish setter, not named, and Rev. A. Harrison's Old 

 Moll. 



It has been claimed that this tracing back to these two dogs alone is 

 fundamentally wrong and that Mr. Laverack brought outside blood into 

 his strain, and as evidence of this there is a letter he wrote his friend Roth- 

 well regarding a puppy that was liver and white saying: "The liver and 

 white will be quite as handsome and good as any of the five in the litter. He 

 strains back to Prince's sire, viz., Pride of the Border, a liver and white. 

 He strains back for thirty years to a change of blood I once introduced — ^the 

 pure old Edward Castle breed — County Cumberland liver and white, quite 



