35 8 The Dog Book 



was the bitch Meta, in whelp to Eclipse, and she was followed by Nesta, in 

 a similar condition. From Meta came Ben Nevis, bought as a puppy by 

 Mr. Shotwell, and Lady of the Lake. Ben Nevis was a large, sable dog, 

 rather smutty in colour, and in that respect Lady of the Lake was much 

 better. Nesta came to our kennels, and in this litter there was one beautiful 

 bitch, Clipsetta, for which we refused the high offer, for those days, of 

 ^200, only to have her killed when a year old by two bob-tails who, starting 

 a fight between themselves, turned on Clipsetta and never left her till she 

 was lifeless. Thinking to show our confidence in the man at whose kennels 

 this happened, we sent him Nesta, and one of the bob-tails broke out of her 

 own kennel of inch boards, got into Nesta's, and killed her. The bob-tails 

 cost $25 for the two. 



A sister to Clipsetta, named Mavis, was the dam of a very fine young 

 dog named Glenlivat, which also met with misfortune, being run over 

 by a train, so that bad luck did not run singly in our effort to perpetuate 

 this line of collies. There were two Eclipse-Nesta litters, as she was sent 

 back to England after her first litter and bred to Eclipse again and from 

 the second litter came the champions Clipper and Glengarry. Mr. Van 

 Schaick also got a son of Eclipse and old Flurry, named Strephon, and 

 to this dog Mavis threw Glenlivat, which Mr. Mason criticised as 

 "undoubtedly one of the grandest young dogs we have seen." 



All of these that were by Eclipse or his descendants were sable-and- 

 white dogs, and they completely settled the pretensions of all the black 

 and tans. At the Newark, N. J., show of 1886 the Meta and Nesta litters 

 accounted for most of the prizes, and they did well at New York also, where 

 the Hempstead farm dogs won many prizes; it being this kennel's last 

 big winning, for Mr. Harrison then took up the breed and swept all before 

 him. At this time we had a few of the get of Rutland, who was Eclipse's 

 great rival in England, but this strain did not last with us. They were 

 very heavily coated dogs, but spongy, and in place of repelling the rain 

 they became water soaked, the coat separating along the back as in a 

 Yorkshire terrier. There was also a lack of size in many of them, and 

 Rutland himself was not a large dog, though our opportunity for seeing 

 him was too brief and unsatisfactory as to surroundings to warrant 

 any definite description beyond saying that he was fine in head and 

 gave that property to some of his puppies shown in this country, 

 but they did not compare favourably with the Eclipse collies; and it 



