It cannot for a moment be doubted that the setter has superior advantages to the pointer, for hunting over our uncleared country, although the pointer has many qualities that recommend him to the sportsman, that the setter does not possess. In the first place, the extreme hardiness and swiftness of foot, natural to the setter, enables him to get over much more ground than the pointer, in the same space of time. Their feet also, being more hard and firm, are not so liable to become sore from contact with our frozen ground. The ball pads being well protected by the spaniel toe-tufts, are less likely to be wounded by the thorns and burs with which our woods are crowded during the winter season. His natural enthusiasm for hunting, coupled with his superior physical powers, enables him to stand much more work than the pointer, and oftentimes he appears quite fresh upon a long continued hunt, when the other will be found drooping and inattentive.
The long, thick fur of the setter, enables him to wend his way through briary thickets without injury to himself, when a similar attempt on the part of a pointer, would result in his ears, tail, and body being lacerated and streaming with blood.
On the other hand, the pointer is superior to the setter in retaining his acquired powers for hunting, and not being naturally enthusiastic in pursuit of game, he is more easily broken and kept in proper subjection.
The setter frequently requires a partial rebreaking at the commencement of each season, in his younger days, owing to the natural eagerness with which he resumes the sport. The necessity of this, however, diminishes with age, as the character and habits of the dog become more settled, and then we may take them into the field, with a perfect assurance of their behaving quite as well on the first hunt of the season, as the stanchest pointer would.
The extreme caution, and mechanical powers of the pointer in the field, is a barrier to his flushing the birds, as is often witnessed in the precipitate running of the setter, who winds the game and frequently overruns it in his great anxiety to come up with it. But this occasional fault on the part of the setter, may be counterbalanced by the larger quantity of game that he usually finds in a day's hunt, owing to his enthusiasm and swiftness of foot. Setters require much more water while hunting than the pointer, owing to their thick covering of fur, encouraging a greater amount of insensible perspiration to fly off than the thin and short dress of the pointer. Consequently they are better calculated to hunt in the coldest seasons than early in our falls, which are frequently quite dry and warm.
A striking instance of this fact came under our own immediate observation this fall, when shooting in a range of country thinly settled and uncommonly dry. The day being warm and the birds scarce, the dogs suffered greatly from thirst, in so much that a very fine setter of uncommon bottom, was forced to give up entirely, completely prostrated, foaming at the mouth in the most alarming manner, breathing heavily, and vomiting from time to time a thick frothy mucus.
His prostration of both muscular and nervous powers was so great, that he could neither smell nor take the slightest notice of a bird, although placed at his nose. He could barely manage to drag one leg after the other, stopping to rest every few moments, and we were fearful that we should be obliged to shoulder and carry him to a farm-house, a considerable distance off. However, he succeeded, with much difficulty, in reaching the well, where he greedily drank several pints of water administered to him with caution.
He recovered almost immediately, gave me a look of thanks, and was off to the fields in a few moments, where he soon found a fine covey of birds.
The pointer, his associate in the day's work, and a much less hardy dog, stood the hunt remarkably well, and seemed to suffer little or no inconvenience from the want of water. The setter has natural claims upon the sportsman and man generally, in his affectionate disposition and attachment to his master, and the many winning manners he exhibits towards those by whom he is caressed.
The pointer displays but little fondness for those by whom he is surrounded, and hunts equally as well for a stranger as his master. — L.
Of the difference between the old English setter and the setters of the present day, we confess that we are ignorant, except that the first was the pure spaniel improved, and the latter the spaniel crossed too frequently with the pointer.
It must be acknowledged, that of companionableness, and disinterested attachment and gratitude, the pointer knows comparatively little. If he is a docile and obedient servant in the field, it is all we want. The setter is unquestionably his superior in every amiable quality. Mr. Blaine says, that a large setter, ill with the distemper, had been nursed by a lady more than three weeks. At length he became so ill as to be placed in a bed, where he remained a couple of days in a dying state. After a short absence, the lady, re-entering the room, observed him to fix his eyes attentively on her, and make an effort to crawl across the bed towards her. This he accomplished, evidently for the sole purpose of licking her hand, after which he immediately expired.
[Daniel] Lambert celebrated for his enormous magnitude, weighing seven hundred and thirty-nine pounds, had a very superior breed of setters, which were publicly sold, at the following prices; after his death, which forcibly illustrates the immense value placed on this dog in England; whereas, many American sportsmen considers it a great hardship to be obliged to give thirty or forty dollars for a well-bred setter in this country.
| dog's name | breed | Guineas |
| Peg | a black Setter Bitch | 41 |
| Punch | a Setter Dog | 26 |
| Brush | do. | 17 |
| Bob | do. | 30 |
| Bell | do. | 32 |
| Bounce | do. | 22 |
| Sam | do. | 26 |
| Charlotte | a Pointer Bitch | 22 |
| Lucy | do. | 12 |
| ____ | ||
| 218 [—L]. |
| The [pointer] is evidently descended from the hound. We beg leave to make the following extracts from our essay on this subject, published in No. 1, vol. xvi, of the Spirit of the Times: The origin of the pointer, like that of the setter, is involved in much obscurity; he is of mixed blood, and no doubt largely indebted to both hound and spaniel for his distinct existence. Many sportsmen are under the erroneous idea that the pointer is contemporary with, if not older than, the Setter. Such, however, is not the case; and we are led to believe that the Pointer is of quite modern origin; at all events, the production of a much later date than the spaniel. |
Strut, [in] his Sports and Pastimes, chap. 1, sects. xv. and xvi., mentions a MS. in the Cotton Library, originally written by William Twici, or Twety, Grand Huntsman to Edward II, who ascended the throne in 1307.
This manuscript contains the earliest treatise on hunting that the English possess, and enumerates the various kinds of game and different species of dogs then in existence, as also the modes of taking the former and using the latter.
After describing, in the usual minute manner, the specific employment of each dog, he finishes by stating:
"The spaniel was for use in hawking, hys crafte is for the perdrich or partridge, and the quail; and when taught to couch, he is very serviceable to the fowler, who takes these birds with nets."
No mention is made in this treatise of the pointer, and we naturally infer that he did not exist, or he would have been noticed in connexion with the spaniel, who, it appears, even at this early period, was taught to couch on and point out game to those employed in netting it.
In the early portion of the sixteenth century, we have another enumeration of dogs, then in use, in a book entitled — A Jewel for Gentrie; which, besides the dogs already descanted upon by Twici, we find added to the list,
"bastards and mongrels, lemors, kenets, terrours, butchers' hounds, dung-hill dogs, trindel-tailed dogs, prychercard curs, and ladies' puppies."
(Chap. 1st., Sec. XVI. — Strut.)