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THE CURLY-COATED BLACK RETRIEVER.

The admirers of this variety cannot have failed to notice, as others have done, its gradual decadence as a sporting dog, and that its position is slowly but surely being usurped by the flat or wavy-coated retriever. This, I think, must be taken as another instance of the survival of the fittest. Those who own the leading strains of "curlies," will, however, not acknowledge this, as they believe their own the best dogs in the world for their purpose-harder in constitution, more shapely, and better able to do rough work than their cousins.

Still, there is no getting away from the fact that the curly-coated retriever does not bear a good reputation. He is inclined to be hard-mouthed, i.e., he may bite and injure the game he ought to retrieve tenderly and without ruffling a feather. His temper, too, is decidedly unreliable, especially with strangers, although, no doubt, there are exceptions here as in everything else. Still, we must look to the curly-coated retrievers as the hardiest of their race, and perhaps the best animal for wild fowl shooting of the day. Were I, however, to be asked to express an opinion as to which of one breed of the British dog was most unreliable in

temper, I should without hesitation say the curlycoated retriever. He is so as he reclines on his bench in the show building; he is so with his companions in his kennels at home; and he remains so when doing duty with the guns at the "big shoot" in the late autumn, when the leaves are off the trees and the undergrowth of bramble and fern have lost their luxuriance.

He is a faithful and useful dog to follow the keeper who makes a companion of him, for in addition to being very steady and easy to command, he possesses a good nose if the scent be not too stale, and is well able to give variety to his retrieving instincts by killing any vermin that the traps may have caught. One big curly dog a keeper owned up in the north was an adept at finding stoats in an old stone fence. With his assistance, the ferrets and the guns, we killed seven of these mischievous little creatures one afternoon, and there were two or three remaining which the dog's owner said they would get the next day. St. John, in his “ Highland Sports," tells how a retriever of his found and brought out an otter.

Although there are, in various parts of the country, some few kennels that contain the curly-coated retrievers for working purposes, he is as often used for a companion and as a show dog. For a companion,