THE SETTER 
in the north, whose name he gave, for £40 a year, and he could have done 
so for life, and made his “fortune,” to use his own words, since the same area 
has been cut up into half-a-dozen shootings, and let for £400 to £600 each. 
Those were days long before the time -shooting syndicates of City sports- 
men, and of American and South African millionaires, for whom the modern 
shooting agents cater, and not for the British sportsman of moderate 
means, as in the old days. To return to the dogs. Mr Laverack had the best 
opportunity of developing the sporting qualities of his dogs, since they were 
constantly at work, and on every kind of ground, from the heather of Perth 
and Inverness, and the peat mosses of Caithness, to the arable fields of 
Ross -shire, where he had a large partridge shooting near Tain. He also 
used them in the scrub of Argyllshire woods, where the oak coppice 
was cut down every seven years for charcoal burning. Here he had fine 
woodcock shooting, and worked his setters with bells on their collars, 
to locate them in the scrub. Such treatment was bound to make its 
mark on the dogs, and when they became known to the public in later 
years it was found that they had strongly marked character in various 
directions, in both shape and make, temperament and instincts, so that 
a pure Laverack could easily be distinguished from any other setter of 
that period. In appearance, at that time, they were peculiar, but now that 
there is hardly to be found a kennel of English setters without a dash more 
or less of Laverack blood, those peculiarities have lost the impression they 
made at their first appearance. In make and shape, they were long, low 
dogs, with short legs, and unusually bent hocks and stifles, a crouching 
cat-like hindquarter, showing great power of leverage. The coat and 
feather were profuse, especially on the chest and under the tail. The head 
was good and bloodlike. The colour was a grizzled black and white, or, as 
it was called, “ blue Belton.” Later on in their history there appeared 
some lemon and white, ticked or spotted, exactly similar to the blues, 
whether owing to a cross or not is a question; anyhow, Laverack preferred 
the blues. In work they were fast and keen rangers, excelling in high head 
carriage, and of indomitable spirit. In fact, one of the charges laid against 
them by their critics was that they were practically unbreakable. It took 
as much time and trouble to break one pure Laverack as it would have taken 
to break half a dozen of another breed. This trait in their character did 
not seem to trouble their owner in the slightest, for, though their pace 
was great and range wide, yet their staunchness more than equalled it. 
Their dash, spirit, and pace were such that a stranger to them, seeing 
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