The English Setter 131 
or for what reason we were unable to find out. Mr. Lewis told us that some 
of the dog’s ancestors had come from Mr. Llewellyn’s kennels, and if that is 
so then Mr. Graham’s own book could be cited in support of the eligibility 
of these two dogs. 
Be it understood that we have no objection to the naming, in some 
special way, of a branch of the setter family bred for the particular purpose 
of running in field trials, but we do hold that no person can purchase a bitch 
from one man and a dog from another and in four months the progeny of 
this brace are eligible to be given his name as a distinguishing title, which 
is just what the so-called Llewellyns amount to. 
We have already referred to the manner in which they were forced to 
the front in dog shows, by placing crudely shaped animals, bred from dogs 
with field trial records, over much better setters; but it is not to be denied 
that the same methods were adopted in field trials, until it was almost a 
matter of necessity to run dogs of certain breeding to win at these contests. 
There is far greater latitude in field trials for the exercise of individual 
opinion—what Mr. John Davidson has aptly styled the judge’s “think” — 
than in dog shows, and this was exercised to the full in field trials. By 
these means all opposition was swamped and the result was most conspicu- 
ous in the shrunken classes of setters at the shows of the period which fol- 
lowed the bad work we have referred to. Not only that, but type was cast 
to the winds, and only at intervals were dogs of the right sort placed where 
they ought to be. It was, indeed, dark days for the English setter for about 
five years beginning about 1887. 
As Mr. Mason hinted in his criticisms quoted above, new standards 
were made to fit the new dogs; but those who held to the old cult would have 
none of the new idea, and the first fell flat, as has also the second; and so 
radically wrong was the latest “‘made-to-fit standard” that it resulted in the 
formation of an English setter club which adopted a standard more in keep- 
ing with what an English setter really is. 
That this field trials strain of setters did good, we do not for a moment 
question. Greater interest was developed in the breeding and running of 
dogs at the trials, which also increased rapidly in number and importance; 
but any claim that our excellent class of field trials dogs is due entirely to 
being able to trace back through several generations to two or three dogs, is 
not tenable fora moment. In an article published recently in Country Life 
in America, we stated our opinion that if there had been no importations 
