722 The Dog Book 



behind." There is no reference to size in this description of the cocking 

 spaniel, but it shows clearly that this very exact writer considered that the 

 blacks were as much entitled to the name as were the black and tans. As late 

 as 1846 "Craven" in his "Recreations in Shooting" quotes Mr. Symons, 

 without credit, and also says " King Charles's spaniel is supposed to be the 

 parent of the cocker breed of dogs. The Blenheim is similar in appearance 

 to the latter, but the cocker's black coat is relieved in the Blenheim (or as it 

 is indifferently called, the Marlborough, or Pyrami, of Buffon), by red spots 

 above the eyes, and on the breast and feet. " This is one of the many 

 misquotations from Buffon to which we have just referred and is given in 

 full to show that even expert sportsmen got these dogs sadly mixed, up to even, 

 a late date. No writer of "Craven's" experience should have made 

 such a mistake as to state that the Blenheim was a black and tan, and it 

 shakes any confidence we might have in his calling the black spaniel a King 

 Charles, but with Mr. Symons and the Longman illustration to back 

 him up, it can stand as corroborative evidence. 



At the same period as "Craven" we have Sir William Jardine's Natural 

 History, to which we have referred on many occasions regarding other 

 breeds. It can be accepted as authoritative as Lieut. Col. Hamilton 

 Smith, who wrote the dog section, had made dogs a study not only in England 

 but throughout the world. In the illustration of the smooth St. Bernard, 

 Bass, facing page 575 there is also a small black and white spaniel, put 

 there probably to show comparative size and this is Colonel Hamilton 

 Smith's typical King Charles. We have every confidence in saying that he 

 did not misname the dog, nor would he have used a black and white if black 

 and tan had been solely correct. In a very accurate "History of the Dog" 

 compiled and written by W. C. L. Martin, who is mentioned as being 'a 

 zoologist whose reputation was well established, the work being published 

 in 1845, we find a somewhat mixed paragraph regarding the King Charles 

 and Blenheim, which the reader will have to unravel for himself: — 



" From King Charles's breed we derive the modern cocker. The colour 

 of the King Charles breed appears to have been black, or black and white 

 and the hair long and silky. Still less than the cocker, or King Charles, 

 breed, is the Marlborough or Blenheim spaniel, the race of which is assi- 

 duously cultivated in the present day; not indeed for field sports, but for 

 the parlour of which it is an ornament. The most prized of this breed are 

 very small, with an abbreviated muzzle and a round skull arched above; 



