somewhat
mean little dog to look at, but quite extraordinary in his work, as
he won the Pointer Puppy Stake at Shrewsbury and the All-Aged Stake
three years in succession. Mr. Salter's Romp family were quite
remarkable in colour--a white ground, heavily shot with black in
patches and in ticks. There have never been any better Pointers than
these. There have been, and are, good black Pointers also. HEIGHT
AND SIZE--A big Pointer dog stands from 24-1/2 inches to 25 inches
at the shoulder. Old Ch. Bang and Young Bang were of the former
height, and the great bitch, Mr. Lloyd Price's Belle, was 24 inches.
For big Pointers 60 pounds is about the weight for dogs and 56 pounds
bitches; smaller size, 54 pounds dogs and 48 pounds bitches. There
have been some very good ones still smaller.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SETTERS

I. THE ENGLISH SETTER.--In some form or other Setters are to be found
wherever guns are in frequent use and irrespective of the precise
class of work they have to perform; but their proper sphere is either
on the moors, when the red grouse are in quest, or on the stubbles
and amongst the root crops, when September comes in, and the partridge
season commences.

Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is supposed to have been the first
person to train setting dogs in the manner which has been commonly
adopted by his successors. His lordship lived in the middle of the
sixteenth century, and was therefore a contemporary of Dr. Caius,
who may possibly have been indebted to the Earl for information when,
in his work on _English Dogges_, he wrote of the Setter under the
name of the Index.

Though Setters are divided into three distinct varieties,--The
English, the Irish and the Gordon, or Black and Tan--there can be
no doubt that all have a common origin, though it is scarcely
probable, in view of their dissimilarity, that the same individual
ancestors can be supposed to be their original progenitors. Nearly
all authorities agree that the Spaniel family is accountable on one
side, and this contention is borne out to a considerable extent by
old illustrations and paintings of Setters at work, in which they
are invariably depicted as being very much like the old liver and
white Spaniel, though of different colours. Doubt exists as to the
other side of their heredity, but it does not necessarily follow that
all those who first bred them used the same means. Of the theories
put forward, that which carries the most pr