CHAPTER X.

THE SPANIELS.

Dog shows, and the consequent breeding for socalled fancy points, have completely altered the character of our English spaniels-at least, of a majority of those we see winning in the rings nowadays. Such are, as a rule, quite a different article to the animal old painters placed upon their canvases, and which writers of previous generations described in the pages of their volumes.

There is no doubt that the spaniel, as he is generally known, preceded the setter, who was produced from him, and was trained to "sett "sett" game many years before the pointer came to be introduced to this country. It has been said both came from Spain originally, a country that was also stated to be the home of the British bulldog. Surely the land of wines and bull fights may be deemed fortunate in obtaining the reputation of being the original manufacturer of such valuable animals.

Juliana Barnes, or Berners, wrote of spaniels in

1486, so did Dr. Keyes, or Caius; and later, in 1677, Nicholas Cox, in his "Gentleman's Recreation," copied what both his predecessors had said about them, and added what remarks Gervase Markham had made on the same subject. Then we must not forget all Aldrovandus put in print early in the sixteenth century, and the engravings he gave of sundry varieties of the Spanish dog, which are described in a preceding chapter on the setter. One of these he called "pantherius," because it was spotted, i.e., more or less ticked, as are many of the handsomer setters and spaniels of the present day.

In Nicholas Cox's time, and earlier, the spaniel was in great measure used as an assistance in hawking, and he says: "how necessary a thing it is to falconry I think nobody need question, as well as to spring and retrieve a fowl being flown to the mark, and also in divers and other ways to help and assist falcons and goshawks." He further alludes to cutting the tails of spaniels, about which he says, "it is necessary for several reasons, to cut off the tip of a spaniel's stern when it is a whelp. First, by doing so worms are prevented from breeding there; in the next place, if it be not cut, he will be the less forward in pressing hastily into the covert after his game; besides this benefit, the dog appears 'more

beautiful.'" This custom of tail docking has continued to this day, we practising it, because the spaniel in working covert is less likely to injure his tail by lashing it backwards and forwards and tearing it amongst the tangled briers and the thick undergrowth than if it were left intact.

Even prior to prior to such early times, we have mention made of the spaniel as of use in hawking, and hys crafte was also for the perdrich or partridge, and the quaile; and, when taught to couche he is very serviceable to the fowlers who take those birds with nets." In a fourteenth century MS. there is a picture of ladies hawking, they being attended by two dogs with long ears, no doubt intended to represent the spaniel of that period.

The spaniel in his two varieties, the land and water spaniel, was the sporting dog in those early days, and in "The Master of the Game," written in the fifteenth century, we are told that this dog "hath many good customs and evil; he should have a large head and body, be of fair hue, white or tawny, and not too rough; but his tail should be rough and feathered."

The Prince to whom we are indebted for this early treatise further says, the breed came from Spain, although it was to be had in other countries,

and those that were used for hawking were "baffers," i.e., they gave tongue.

From these two breeds of spaniels, I believe, have sprung all the varieties known at the present time, not excluding the toy spaniels. Writers on canine matters so recently as within the present century, have told us that the Blenheim spaniel was at that time used for covert shooting, and was useful in such a capacity. Now it is purely and simply a lap or toy dog, and the most perfect specimens that are seen on the show benches would likely enough come off but second best in a tussle with a good wild rabbit.

The extraordinary sagacity and affectionate disposition of the spaniel have repeatedly formed a theme for those who delight to dwell on anecdotes relating to dogs. Unfortunately, in most instances, the variety of spaniel is not mentioned, so one is at a loss to know whether to give the credit of such extraordinary intelligence to the little creature that has been the pampered favourite of monarchs and ladies since the days of the Stuarts, or to that equally valuable animal which assists the sportsman to fill his bag with either feathered or ground game, or both.

But, as already hinted, the show era has wrought an extraordinary change in the character and appear

ance of our spaniels, and in vain we look for the old curly-coated water variety that our grandfathers valued so highly, or for the equally useful and smaller dog, some twenty pounds weight or so, that would with equal facility "fetch" a stick that had been thrown into the water, or retrieve a rabbit with a hind leg broken that in vain struggled to reach the sanctuary of its burrow.

With, perhaps, few exceptions, the chief being the Clumber and Irish variety, our show spaniel of to-day is not a sportsman's dog-a fancy creature merely, whose coat requires as much grooming as that of a Yorkshire terrier, and the slightest waviness thereon would be as fatal to its chances of success before some judges as if it had but one eye, and unable to see with that one. Crooked forelegs, malformed elbows and shoulders, are often allowed to pass muster in the show ring, but a curly or wavy coat seldom.

Personally I should disqualify dogs with crooked, disproportioned forelegs, however long they might be in body, however "near the ground" (meaning, however short the legs), and however straight the coat. These abnormally formed dogs-" long and low" their owners love to call them-have completely usurped the position that the old fashioned field spaniel formerly occupied, and the modern edition is