120 The Dog Book 
being owners of both sorts. At the American shows both sorts have ap- 
peared, and the Rhoebe blood has always beaten the Laverack. At field 
trials no Laverack has been entered, but first, second and third prizes were 
gained at their last field trials, in the champion stakes, by dogs of the Rhoebe 
blood, all descended from Mr. Llewellyn’s kennels.” In the first place, the 
same men did not own the setters named, Mr. L. H. Smith, of Strathroy, 
Ont., being the only one to possess representatives of each lot. As to the 
wins, the first champion stakes of record, run in 1876, had Drake, Stafford 
and Paris placed in that order. Drake was bred by Mr. Luther Adams 
and was by the Laverack dog Prince, out of Dora, who was bred by Mr. 
Statter and was by Duke out of Rhoebe. A very strange record of breeding 
to claim to have come from Mr. Llewellyn’s kennels. Stonehenge very 
pertinently remarks that as the two strains had not met afield there was no 
indication of superiority, and that without any definite knowledge he was 
quite prepared to admit superiority on the bench, as the Laverack dogs 
were heavy and lumbering, and the bitches, “though very elegant, too 
small and delicate for perfection.” 
Going on to discuss merits of the field trials performers as shown 
in England, Stonehenge says: “Now, although I have always regarded 
Duke himself as on the whole a good dog, especially in pace and range, 
and have estimated Dan and Dick, the result of his cross with Mr. Statter’s 
Rhoebe, favourably, as compared with the Laverack litters as shown in 
Bruce and Rob Roy, yet I never considered Dan as a good cross for the 
Laverack bitches, because his sire always showed a want of nose similar 
to the Laveracks themselves. Duke is said by ‘Setter,’ and I believe cor- 
rectly, to have received a high character from Mr. Barclay Field for his 
nose as exhibited in private, but he was notoriously deficient in this quality 
when brought before the public, going with his head low and feeling the 
foot rather than the body scent. In proof of this defect it is only necessary 
to say that he was beaten by Hamlet and Young Kent in this quality at 
Bala, in 1867, when the judge gave him only thirty-one out of a possible 
forty for nose, while at Stafford in the following spring Rex found birds 
twenty yards behind the place where he had left his point, thereby gaining 
the cup, Sir V. Corbett, the breeder of Duke, being one of the judges and 
loud in his admiration of Rex’s nose, while finding fault with that of Duke. 
Indeed, this defect was always made the excuse for E. Armstrong’s con- 
stant interference with him by hand and voice—whether rightly or wrongly 
