SPORTING SPANIELS 
held since Mr EversfieJd first began trials on his estate some have been 
brought out and sold at a remunerative figure. Of recent years the best 
of those dogs were Grenehurst, Dick, and Bessie, both from the same 
kennel, and each quite in the front rank, though none has done so well 
at field trials as might be expected. The Welsh springers and cockers 
sent from time to time from the kennel of Mr A. T. Williams have done 
uncommonly well in all competitions, and so long as we retain an interest 
in spaniels and shooting we are not likely to forget the way in which 
Mr Williams’s spaniels showed up the failings of the English entry at 
trials held in the Vale of Neath in the early days of the competitions. 
The ground in that part of the country is considered ideal for spaniel 
trials, though, as a fact, there is no such thing as ideal spaniel ground. 
A man must make choice of the variety most suitable for the particular 
ground he happens to be shooting over, and the shooter who said that 
there was no better ground than Wales for trials when the question was 
raised some years since, no doubt meant that for a small, hard terrier -like 
dog the terribly thick, almost impossible ground in some parts of the 
Principality is most suitable for competitions. In the old days it is prac- 
tically certain that Wales was more shot over with spaniels than any 
other part of Great Britain. The Vale of Neath, Margam, Gwern-y-Fed, 
and Wynnstay are shootings which come to mind in this connexion. It 
certainly would be difficult to find ground on which a spaniel of one variety 
or the other would be more useful than on either of those mentioned. 
The Irish Water Spaniel . — A word must certainly be given in praise of the 
Irish water spaniel, though a trial stake at Mansfield in 1907 was not 
repeated, nor was a meeting arranged under the management of the Irish 
Water Spaniel Club at Mildenhall persevered with. It simply died a natural 
death, owners ceasing to take the least interest in it, a fact for which they 
may now be sorry, for it is certain that the variety in its way is exceedingly 
useful. One of the things against the Irish variety is its size. It is too big for a 
dog -cart or a motor car. It cannot easily be found accommodation under the 
seat of a railway carriage, a great consideration in these days of travel. At 
the meeting on the Mansfield shooting of Sir Hugo FitzHerbert in 1907, 
we well remember that handlers were told that their dogs must work 
in front of them, not in the manner of a land spaniel, which works fast 
and quarters its ground, but like a keeper’s retriever, which trots up 
a hedgerow or along a river’s bank, just ahead of his master, flushes all 
game for the gun, and does not retrieve till told to do so. It was also ordered 
249 
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