THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
Relf, his gamekeeper, however, being allowed to ‘make a choice of a 
dog and bitch, selected George and Romp, and from them most of the 
Sussex celebrities of to-day are descended. Mr Campbell Newington, of 
Ticehurst, has long been a very staunch admirer of the breed. As a fact it 
is to him and to Mr Moses Woolland, Col. Claude Cane, and Mr J. Ernest 
Kerr that the breed exists to-day. Mr Woolland finding the claims of 
the very flourishing business in the West End of London prevented him 
from paying attention to his kennel, cleared out the breed in 1905. The 
best of his stock went to Mr Newington, one of the dogs fetching something 
like eighty -five guineas. Field trial honours have been won by dogs of 
this variety, and while not possessing the dash of the springer, there is 
something about the appearance of the Sussex spaniel which every one 
must admire. 
The Cocker . — Mention must be made of the merry cocker, though at some 
of the trial meetings specimens of the variety have been handicapped by 
being run against the bigger and heavier spaniels, and it has been rather 
ridiculous to see a cocker not weighing twenty pounds attempting to retrieve 
a big hare. Of course some, including those run by Mr R. de Courcy Peele, 
Lieut. -Col. Heseltine, Mr C. A. Phillips, the Duke of Hamilton, and Mr J. R. 
Winterton have been able to do that, but retrieving is not the cocker’s 
work, and we should like to see him confined to pushing out game from 
the gorse or hedgerow. At this work a cocker with the right spirit is the 
best of the gundog race, and one of the prettiest sights on the shooting 
field is to see a team of them beating out suitable ground. They have been 
found very useful on the grouse moors and are so handy that quite a team 
of them can be carried in a motor car or in a dog-cart for use on the moors 
or at a pheasant drive. If wanted for retrieving, a cocker should not weigh 
less than twenty-five pounds, for, after the Clumber, a cocker sufficiently 
long on the leg, and big enough to carry with ease a rabbit or pheasant, 
runs the Welsh or English springer very closely as second favourite. 
A pheasant is quite big enough for most of them, but a hare wants carry- 
ing. I agree with Col. Claude Cane that cockers are primarily sporting 
dogs, and though there is no sense in trying to get them big enough to 
carry a capercaillie (as one which is not at all oversized at least had 
the pluck to attempt), they must be possessors of physique and stamina 
enough to do a day’s work. There is plenty for small spaniels to do, and 
there are places where only a small spaniel can work; but to do that work 
he must not be a toy or a weakling. The man who expects a spaniel to 
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