The Pointer 287 



The pointer then put up the hare and the greyhound ran it down. It 

 would be natural for a custom to survive so far from the centre of up-to- 

 date sport as Stirling was for many years after it had ceased to be practised 

 in the more advanced sporting counties of England, such as Yorkshire or 

 Norfolk. At the time Major Topham penned the statements quoted he 

 was one of the most prominent coursing men of England, and had just 

 completed the critical and explanatory preface to Scott's beautifully illus- 

 trated edition of Somerville's "The Chase." He was not the kind of man 

 to give a wrong name to the dog he was speaking of, and the repetition of 

 the statement clears away any doubt as to the. dog he meant to specify. 

 It should also be borne in mind that modern coursing was not established 

 until about 1776, when Lord OfFord organised the Swaffham Coursing 

 Club, so that some relics of old-time methods might well have remained 

 into the eighteenth century and the pointer not improbably have been used 

 to locate the hare. 



As to improving this finding hound into the gun dog, we can see no 

 obstacle to the acceptance of the conclusion arrived at. These dogs were 

 led when they followed the trail or located game, and it not being their 

 business to rouse the quarry on all occasions, they or some of them undoubt- 

 edly became accustomed to stand, or to their being checked when close 

 to the game, just as headstrong dogs are broken with the check cord to 

 the present day. Undoubtedly some of them developed on their own 

 account this standing when close to the game, and were used to breed from 

 on that account. Then when a dog was wanted for use with the improved 

 gun, this pointing hound was the one that was found to be exactly the thing 

 needed. That of itself will account for the hound type of the early pointers, 

 dogs which were painted long prior to what we know were actual crosses 

 between the pointer and foxhound as made by Colonel Thornton, who 

 was copied by others, at the close of the eighteenth century, and will also 

 account for no serious harm from such a reversion to the parent stock of 

 the hound.* 



* Since the chapter on the pointer was written we have come across some very important testimony on this, 

 point. When in Philadelphia for the Wissahickon dog show in June, 1905, we found among other useful prints that of 

 shooting flying from horseback. No one could tell us where it came from, so a copy of the engraving was sent to Lon- 

 don and our correspondent was exceedingly fortunate to come across the "Sportsman's Dictionary," second edition,. 

 173 J, which not only had all the plates of the edition but nine extra plates from an earlier quarto book on sports. The 

 two volumes contain nothing regarding pointers, the name never being mentioned, but under "Bloodhound" we found 

 this: "Some are of that nature that when they have found the game they will stand still till the huntsman come up,. 

 to whom in silence, by their face, eye and tail, they show the game." This "Sportsman's Dictionary," we soon found, 

 copied liberally from older writers, and we have traced the complete bloodhound article through several books at far 



