Another charming method of shooting is found still farther South, in Georgia, where there are vast areas of pine forests and quail in them.
Here it is common to drive through the pathless woods. The waggons are often driven over a fallen tree that to English eyes seems to bar the way. It is an article of faith that if the horse can get over, the buggy will follow.
There is naturally a limit to one’s range of vision amongst straight stems, although there is no brushwood to interfere, and the way free rangers when upon the point are found in these woods, as also in the brushwood outside, is by means of other dogs; there may be half a dozen hunting together, and several spare animals in the buggy. If careful watching does not discover the last direction taken by the dog on point, it will do so of one or other of the backing dogs, and, failing that, another is turned out to look for the out-of-sight brigade. January sport is like driving in the English pine districts on an early September day, and shooting partridges in the woods (for the “quail” or “bob-whites” are partridges, and not quail) and the bracing freshness of the pine-laden air has, with good reason, caused New York fashion to winter in the pine districts of Georgia, of which Thomasville is a good specimen, for sport and health.
Since writing the above, a puppy the author selected in America in 1904, then eight months old and unentered, has beaten all the pointers and setters at the grouse trials on Lord Home’s beautiful Lanarkshire moors, in August 1906. This is Captain H. Heywood Lonsdale’s Ightfield Rob Roy, and very fully confirms a view expressed above, that the severest tests are the best for keeping up a breed. This dog comes of the remarkably in-bred race referred to in the chapter on English setters, and it need not be mentioned further, except to say that the pure breed as first-rate performers came to an end in this country owing to in-breeding, without at the same time selecting as severely for vitality as the field trial system does in America. Selection has negatived the well-known influence of in-breeding in everything except in size. This pure bred in-bred race was originated over there by the author’s selection for Americans of dogs all descended from those six setters named in the chapter on English setters, and picked and recommended from the kennels of the late Mr. Tom Statter, the late Mr. Laverack, the late Mr. Barclay Field, Mr. Purcell Llewellin, and others. In the exported originals they were Laverack and Rhœbe crosses, like Mr. Barclay Field’s Rock on the one hand; Laveracks, like Mr. Laverack’s Victress (Dash and Moll); Laverack and Rhœbe crosses like the late Mr. Statter’s Rob Roy; Duke and Rhœbe crosses bred by Mr. Statter, of which strain two big bitches were sent out; and others of the three crosses, Duke, Rhœbe, and Laveracks, like Mr. Llewellin’s Druid and his Count Noble. The demand for them arose in consequence of some letters the author had written in the American sporting press referring to the superiority of these three strains over any others of that period. The author even ventured to give them a title, namely “the Field Trial breed,” and that was the sole reason why they were kept uncrossed with other blood in America. It is this uncrossed blood that is represented in Captain Heywood Lonsdale’s Rob Roy, but that this race of in-breds is still valuable (and in America by far the most valuable) is owing to those three-hour stamina trials by which the sires are selected. It was because of the severity of those tests that the writer felt sure that he could select in America superior material to any our breakers have to work upon. That idea was not very popular when it was first stated some five years ago; but those who had taken the opposite view were generous when they saw Rob Roy’s performance, and, as one of them remarked, they “took it all back.” The crosses of this energetic strain cannot fail to improve our setters, and if we could only import the severity of selection of the best winners by further more severe stamina trials, we should not be long behind America. There the breed has a Stud Book registration to itself, for which any cross whatever disqualifies. They are registered as “Llewellin setters,” which was for some reason substituted for the “Field Trial breed” which the author had given. In conversation they are spoken of in America as “straight-bred,” and in England the best designation is “the American straight-bred setters,” since it is necessary to know that we are not speaking of the same breed as Mr. Llewellin’s recent field trial representatives, which are crossed, and could not be registered in the American Stud Book as Llewellin setters or straight-bred ones. About thirty-five field trials for pointers and setters are held every year in America, and honours rarely, if ever, fall on any other race except setters, either straight-bred or having 90 per cent. of the blood, and on the pointers.
THE IRISH SETTER
Fashion has made the Irish setter a red dog, whereas there used to be many more index dogs of Erin red-and-white than red. Fashion in this case has been the dog show, but if that had been all the result of its influence the author would have been content. It is the Irishmen who are most concerned, and the fact that the Irish setter is the worst colour in the world to see in a Scotch mist can be well understood not to matter in Irish atmosphere and manners of thinking. Between 1870 and 1880 the dog shows had attracted most of the handsomest dogs in Ireland, and many of these were very good workers.
From time to time an Irish setter has been good enough to compete with success at English field trials, and although on occasion such an animal has carried all before it in its stake, neither in England nor America has one of the breed ever won a Champion Stake, so that probably it will be considered fair to say that poor competition has brought the Irish to the front when by chance they have come out first at field trials. The author has seen and shot over many charming red setters, but he has never seen a really great dog of that breed—that is, not a dog in the same class with the pointers Drake and Romp’s Baby.
The best Irish setter the writer ever shot over had the peculiar luck of always finding birds when, by the manners of other dogs, there appeared to be none about. Many a time has a bad day been redeemed by letting off this beautiful red dog, a son of the field trial winner Plunket. To some good judges of dog’s work the field trials appeared to be at the mercy of this setter; but he had a peculiarity often to be found in those of his race—he would only hunt for blood, and consequently out of the shooting season he was as useless as an ill-broken, careless puppy. He would run up birds without appearing to smell them before they rose, or to see them afterwards. Instead of waiting on your every wish, as he did in the shooting season, he took no interest whatever in the proceedings, and you could not cheat him into believing business was meant by the use of blank or any other cartridges. It is easy to defend such a characteristic in individual or race on the ground that it shows their sense. So it does, no doubt, but it also shows that the questing instinct is weak in them, and there are good reasons for preferring it to be very strong. The breaking season is the spring, and a dog that will not hunt for all it is worth then cannot be broken. As a matter of fact, only few Irish setters ever are highly finished. More than half of those that have come to field trials have been unsafe in the abode of a hare. At the same time, those that are taken to spring field trials hunt well enough, but of course these are a very small proportion.
In popular opinion the greatest fault is that the race carry low heads; at the same time, this carriage does not invariably mean bad “noses.” The writer has seen an Irish setter turn a complete somersault over its own nose, which it ran against a stiff furrow of a fallow field; but this one had a good nose, although not the very best. The author was judging one year at the National Field Trials with Mr. George Davies, of Retriever fame, when Colonel Cotes’ fast and good pointer Carl was sent off against an Irish setter belonging to Mr. Cheetham. The latter never lifted his nose in hunting or in drawing to game more than would miss the buttercups, but nevertheless, from behind, he again and again found partridges that the other dog, much nearer, had failed to detect. Carl was very fast and the Irish setter very slow, but the former was beaten pointless.
There is a fiction that Irish setters are faster than other dogs, but this is not the case. It is much more usual to see them out-paced, as in the above-named instance. It may be that they generally have so merry a stern action that they look to be bustling, when in fact their actual getting over the ground is not fast. Their low noses cause them to take very narrow parallels when they are careful, so that if they are judged by the ground they actually cover or beat they are usually of less capacity than their only moderate speed suggests. They ought to last well at the pace they go, but although stamina is said to be another of their strong points over English setters, the author has known many of the latter breed that could do more work than any Irish setter he has seen. These have included some of the best Irish setter winners at field trials. But years ago there were Irish dogs that could go a good pace and stay well. They were bigger dogs than those which win at shows now, and looked more like workmen. It is to be feared that breeding for show points has evolved a bustling and busy rather than a business-like race. They are now smaller, shorter, especially in the quarters, and more upright in the shoulder, than the best of the old sort. There is not now anything at all like Palmerston and Kate, winners at Birmingham about the same time. The last-named was probably as well made and as setter-like as any dog could be, and to compare the present show setters with her is like comparing a polo pony with a Derby winner. At the spring field trials of 1906 only one Irish setter was entered, and that one was far from being even moderate in its work.