CHAPTER XIII 
Tue Fietp SPANIEL 
IPANTELS of a size larger than cockers and intermediate 
Jj to the setter have been known for many years. They 
have had a variety of names, such as finders, starters, spring- 
ers, and still later that of field spaniels; but in treating of the 
———— field spaniel of the present day it is not necessary to go further 
back than the time when the modern type was established, mainly by Mr. 
T. Jacobs in the early eighties. Prior to the period when that gentleman 
revolutionised the variety the heavy spaniel which was neither Sussex 
nor Clumber, and might be of any colour, was classed as a field spaniel 
and was of no definite and settled type. It ran higher on the leg and had 
a coat more inclined to wave or curl than had the dogs introduced by 
Mr. Jacobs, which set the fashion we have followed ever since. Of course 
‘we are speaking entirely of spaniels in England, for spaniels up to that 
period were a motley lot in this country. In English works on the dog a 
good deal is said about the old Burdett, Bullock and Boulton strains, and 
we have nothing to say against them in any way. Indeed, it is almost 
certain that as regards usefulness they were superior to the present-day 
dog, which, with all his show qualities in appearance, we cannot help 
concluding is not much adapted for use. His conformation is proof posi- 
tive that he has no great speed, but moves like a Clumber or a heavy 
Sussex, and his vocation is in heavy coverts at a moderate pace; a kind of 
shooting very little followed in this country. 
The pre- Jacobites, if we must invent a word, were mainly like large 
cocker spaniels in conformation, and although we read in the older books 
-of Stonehenge and writers of his period of their lowness and length, that 
was only a comparative description. The prize winners were lower—in 
comparison with length—than the ordinary run of working spaniels of that 
period, but we should call them too high on the leg now. They also lacked 
the type in head called for in present-day spaniels, and we really think 
‘were more spaniel- -like than our exaggerated type. We will take Brush 
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