The English Setter 131 



or for what reason we were unable to find out. Mr. Lewis told us that some 

 of the dog's ancestors had come from Mr. Llewellyn's kennels, and if that is 

 so then Mr. Graham's own book could be cited in support of the eligibility 

 of these two dogs. 



Be it understood that we have no objection to the naming, in some 

 special way, of a branch of the setter family bred for the particular purpose 

 of running in field trials, but we do hold that no person can purchase a bitch 

 from one man and a dog from another and in four months the progeny of 

 this brace are eligible to be given his name as a distinguishing title, which 

 is just what the so-called Llewellyns amount to. 



We have already referred to the manner in which they were forced to 

 the front in dog shows, by placing crudely shaped animals, bred from dogs 

 with field trial records, over much better setters; but it is not to be denied 

 that the same methods were adopted in field trials, until it was almost a 

 matter of necessity to run dogs of certain breeding to win at these contests. 

 There is far greater latitude in field trials for the exercise of individual 

 opinion — what Mr. John Davidson has aptly styled the judge's "think" — 

 than in dog shows, and this was exercised to the full in field trials. By 

 these means all opposition was swamped and the result was most conspicu- 

 ous in the shrunken classes of setters at the shows of the period which fol- 

 lowed the bad work we have referred to. Not only that, but type was cast 

 to the winds, and only at intervals were dogs of the right sort placed where 

 they ought to be. It was, indeed, dark days for the English setter for about 

 five years beginning about 1887. 



As Mr. Mason hinted in his criticisms quoted above, new standards 

 were made to fit the new dogs; but those who held to the old cult would have 

 none of the new idea, and the first fell flat, as has also the second; and so 

 radically wrong was the latest "made-to-fit standard" that it resulted in the 

 formation of an English setter club which adopted a standard more in keep- 

 ing with what an English setter really is. 



That this field trials strain of setters did good, we do not for a moment 

 question. Greater interest was developed in the breeding and running of 

 dogs at the trials, which also increased rapidly in number and importance; 

 but any claim that our excellent class of field trials dogs is due entirely to 

 being able to trace back through several generations to two or three dogs, is 

 not tenable for a moment. In an article published recently in Country Life 

 in America, we stated our opinion that if there had been no importations 



