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CHAPTER XXIII.

THE SUSSEX SPANIEL.

A WELL-KNOWN authority on the dog, writing in 1802, says that some of the largest and strongest spaniels "are common in many parts of Sussex, and are called Sussex spaniels." Unfortunately, he does not tell us what colour they were or what colour they ought to be, still there is no doubt, from what I have been told, from what I have read, and from general gossip, that this spaniel was brown in colour, or, as that shade is usually called in application to the variety, "golden liver."

It somehow appears strange that, until within twenty-five years or so ago, this handsome and useful spaniel should have been allowed to languish in a quiet country place in its native county; bred by certain families, who valued it only for its working excellences, and, by a course of much inbreeding, rendered its extinction only a matter of time unless others came forward to strengthen the breed.

When " Stonehenge" wrote, in 1859, in "The Dog in Health and Disease," attention appears to