116 The Dog Book 
Referring to the main stem table, we have six generations from Ponto 
to Dash II., a period of thirty-nine years, or an average of six and a half 
years to a generation. According to that supposition Moll II. and Cora I. 
were whelped about 1836. Turning to the table of spurs, we have Fred I. 
recorded as whelped in 1853, by which time his dam, Moll II. was, accord- 
ing to the foregoing computation, seventeen years old. We next come to a 
veritable Sarah in brood bitches, the venerable Cora I. a full sister, possibly 
a litter sister to Moll II., and find that she was bred to this nephew of hers, 
Fred I., about 1857, and when about twenty-one years of age, she produced 
Cora II., dam of Dash II. who was whelped 1862. If any person desires 
to believe these things possible we have no objection, but we do object to 
any one thinking to overthrow the name of Laverack or disparage the great 
benefit he was to the breed because his pedigrees will not scan. What differ- 
ence did it make if Mr. Laverack had simply stated that he had bred his 
setters from 1825, starting with a brace he had obtained from the Rev. A. 
Harrison, and interbred their progeny, that he had at various times tried 
outcrosses with reputable strains, but had never had satisfactory results 
and had come back to his old line again as closely as possible. The dogs 
would have been just as good individually, Countess would still have been 
the wonder she was, and there would have been no difference in the results 
of the Dan cross on the Laverack bitches, nor of the Laverack dogs 
on Dan’s sisters. Mr. Laverack’s setters were good because he had 
all the time been intent on their improvement, not because he gave 
with them a string of names in various order back to Old Moll and her 
consort Ponto. 
It has been said that Mr. Laverack only bred to supply his own wants 
for shooting dogs, and then only when his brace in use were getting old did 
he rear a litter, pick out a new brace and repeat the operation. The known 
facts do not support this supposition, for he writes about many gentleman 
having his strain of setters, and from the amount of shooting he did he must 
have had a fairly well-filled kennel from which to draw his supply. Writing 
to his friend Rothwell, when he was an old man, November, 1874, he tells 
of having lost three puppies Rothwell had sent him, also six more and two 
brood bitches, eighteen months old, for which he had refused fifty guineas 
each, besides four more young dogs. Again in the first volume of the 
English stud book we find seven setters registered in his name, fifteen dogs 
bred by him registered as the property of others, and about twice as many 
