THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
reduced half-breed by the pointer, and engage to perfect him in less 
time. There is not that inequality of temper, as in the other classes of 
that species; and I challenge any sportsman to give an instance of 
a full English spaniel being sullen after proper correction.” (The 
italics are ours.) 
In Sir Walter Scott’s novel, ‘‘ The Antiquary,” we find Hector, Monk- 
barn’s nephew, calling his setter a ‘‘ spaniel,” and praising her for her 
‘‘ travel ” (i.e. pace and range), provoking his uncle to retort, ‘‘ Then I 
wish she would travel away from here.” 
Much more evidence could be produced, but without labouring the 
point to the limit of weariness, it is plain that the setter was at one time 
known as the ” English spaniel,” and it would appear that the spaniels of 
that day were divided into two classes, i.e. the larger, or the setter, and 
the lesser, i.e. the springer — the one taught to sit or set, for the purpose 
of allowing the partridge net to be drawn over it (hence the name “setter,” 
i.e. sitter), and the other, the “ springer,” to find and spring the game. 
One of our authors mentions using the net, and that fifty years before 
the date at which he wrote, 1824, the dog used with the net was an English 
spaniel, called setter, from being taught to set. In this connexion, it is 
interesting to notice the author’s description of the colours of those old 
setters, i.e. black and tan, and orange, or lemon and white. This subject 
may be returned to later. Outside the evidence of these old authors, 
the pictures and old prints of sporting scenes which have come down to 
us from those days show a strong family likeness between the setter and 
the old springer, and this point is emphasized, even as regards the modern 
setter, by no less an authority than the late Mr Edward Laverack, who 
sums up a detailed description of his ideal setter, in a letter in the posses- 
sion of the writer, in the following words: “ In fact the general appearance 
of the dogs would be that of a strongly built spaniel.” 
It may, therefore, be taken for granted that the setter was the larger 
spaniel, and being thus longer on the leg, and possessed of more “ travel,” 
was selected to be trained for the net, that, in fact, the first setter was “ a 
setting spaniel.” 
The first person who broke a dog to the net has been stated to be the 
Duke of Northumberland, in 1535; and although their use for that pur- 
pose has long been discarded by the legitimate sportsman, they have been 
used, to the certain knowledge of the writer, by poachers very much nearer 
these modern days, for taking partridges at night with the net, for which 
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