170 The Dog Book 
innate point, and rather deficient in nose, as they are to this day, and never 
to be broken in the first season, and very often not till the third; but that 
then, their temper taming down, and their sagacity improving by experience, 
they often become most admirable dogs. Their constitutions were so 
vigorous that they lived to a great age, and were serviceable even up to the 
thirteenth or fourteenth years. None of the authorities which I have 
consulted will admit of a pure descendant of the old race having a black 
stain; they consider it as undeniable proof of a cross. 
“There were also two other well established breeds in Ireland—one 
smaller and lighter in all ways than the red. These had better noses and 
were more tractable, and it is supposed that it is from a cross with them 
that the black and tan arises. I have seen some of these dogs myself; 
they were good but not handsome animals. The last I saw was with Lord 
Howth, and he was very fond of them. The other breed—the white and 
red [This is different from the red and white and was a setter mainly white, 
with red splashes.—Ep.] claims equal antiquity with the red, and many 
consider them to have been as good as the red in all respects and superior 
in point of nose. I have seen these dogs, magnificent in appearance and 
excellent in the field, but have not met them lately, though no doubt they 
are to be found. I know they were highly thought of eighty or ninety years 
ago, because a certain General White—a grand uncle of mine, who died 
about 1802, and was, perhaps, one of the first Englishmen who ever took a 
moor in Scotland—used to bring his setters from Ireland, and I have heard 
my father say that the General’s favourite breed was the white and red; 
in fact, I distinctly remember seeing some of the descendants. These dogs 
were, and are still more or less curly.” Here might be ground for 
Stonehenge’s claim of Irish in the Gordons if we could connect General 
Whyte and the Duke of Gordon in any exchange, for a red and white 
dog was included in the Castle sale of 1836. 
Tt will not be out of place here to recall the extract made from “Nim- 
tod’s” “Sporting,” which was quoted in Part II, wherein he described 
having seen the old Flintshire Squire netting partridges with a leash of red 
and white setters. 
Also to point out, before leaving this discussion as to colour, that Mr. 
Laverack drew particular attention to a blood red and white setter hav- 
ing been shown him by the keeper at the La Touche kennels as the 
best he had. Also that the grand-dam on the sire’s side of Captain 
