For reasons that it is difficult to fully explain, English setters have
been subjected to more fluctuations in merit than any other breed. The
last decadence undoubtedly set in when the show and field trial sorts
first became distinct breeds. The show dogs lost the assurance of
constitution which work in the field guarantees, and the field trial
dogs lost the breeder’s care for external form, which as show dogs their
ancestors had received. Moreover, they had no equivalent in England in
the form of stamina tests at field trials, and the principal breeders
have so many dogs that stamina is of little importance in practice to
them, however necessary it is to the maintenance of the vitality of a
race of thoroughbreds.
There is evidence of black-white-and-tan setters in a Flemish picture of
A. Dürer, but in England the earliest _clear_ evidence makes the English
setter of 1726, or thereabouts, either red-and-white or black-and-tan.
From the breeding together of these two colours may now be produced
whole-coloured red and whole-coloured black, black-and-white, and
black-white-and-tan dogs, and possibly also their various mixtures, such
as “ticked” dogs of either colour, but this is doubtful. There have been
several strains of liver-and-white setters, quite pure bred as far as
anyone knew, but bearing traces of water spaniel character, so that it
is probable they were originated by this cross at some remote period.
Probably it is possible to originate liver-and-white by crossing
black-and-white on lemon-and-white; but if that is so, this is an
original mixture of colouring that is exceedingly unusual, provided
there is no reversion to a liver-and-white ancestor. It is unusual for
this blend to occur, because a race of setters has been bred for many
years in which more than 99 per cent. of the offspring came one of three
colours—namely, black-and-white ticked, lemon-and-white ticked, and
black-white-and-tan with very few ticks and large patches of colour. The
other two colours that have shown themselves, each less than 1 per
cent., have been red and white in large patches—a combination of the
markings of one, and the colour of another, ancestral race—and
liver-and-white. But it is possible that these two rare kinds are not
blends at all, but only reversions to ancestors more than thirty-five
years and ten or twelve generations back. Paper pedigrees can trace the
colours and the absence of red markings back much farther than this, but
the author is only now discussing what he personally remembers. Probably
these are not reversions at all, but merely blends of colour and
markings. It would possibly be more nearly correct to say that the
liver-and-white appears in the race referred to no more often than once
in a thousand puppies. If it is a reversion, it shows how very nearly a
cross may be bred out; and if it is a blend, it proves that whatever
generation of these black-and-white and lemon-and-white setters are
crossed together the offspring continues to come of the three original
strains of blood, with little mixture, and very seldom a thorough
mixture.
All the best English setters in the world are descended from Mr.
Hackett’s Rake, a descendant of Mr. Burdett’s black-and-tan Brougham.
Rake begat Mr. Staffer’s Rhœbe, and also Judy, the dam of the Champion
Field Trial dog Ranger. These two, Rhœbe and Ranger, founded two
distinct families, which for a very long time were not mixed, and in
America are still separate, and the former remains uncrossed with
American blood. The Ranger blood was principally kept up by Mr. James
Bishop of Wellington, Salop, and by Mr. Elias Bishop also.
The Rhœbe blood came into note when this celebrated brood bitch was
crossed with Duke, a dog bred from a Netherby dog, and a Staffordshire
bred bitch, belonging to the late Sir Vincent Corbet. Amongst many good
offspring, Rhœbe had one peculiar dog called Dan. He stood over 27
inches at the shoulder, and had more bone than any foxhound. This setter
won the Champion Stake at the National Field Trials in 1871. His chief
merits were that he was very fast without distressing himself, and his
tremendous strength and stride enabled him to go round fast small ones
without appearing to be trying, and meantime to flick his stern as only
those going within their powers can. Setter breeding was revolutionised
when this dog was bred to the best bitches of Mr. Laverack’s sort.
Mr. Laverack’s dogs in the sixties were known mostly upon the show
bench; but what was then less well recognised was that no dogs had done
harder work upon the moors for many canine generations. They were said
to be in-bred to only two animals on all sides of this pedigree, and to
go back seventy years without any cross whatever. It is probable that
Mr. Laverack had forgotten what crosses he did make; but in any case he
crossed with the black-white-and-tan Gordons of Lord Lovat’s kennel, and
whether he kept the offspring or not, there was generally a trace of tan
about the cheeks of his black-and-white ticked dogs. In any case, his
dogs were very much in-bred, until some of them suddenly came
liver-and-white in one litter, and red, and black, whole-coloured in
another. None of the latter were allowed to mix with the Rhœbe and Duke
strain of setters, and indeed these were only crossed with the blood
named above, and with that of John Armstrong’s Dash II., a son of a
Laverack setter dog, and descended from a bitch said to be a sister of
that Duke mentioned above. From this limited material in point of
numbers, but of three distinct strains of blood, the finest setters of
modern times were produced, including many that won principal honours of
the show and also of the field trials. In England they took most of the
field trials for setters for some years, and in America they took all
stakes that were open to both pointers and setters for even longer. To
apportion the merit amongst the original three strains would be
difficult, but as the setter breeding of the future depends on a proper
understanding of that of the past, some few remarks may be of use.
First, it has to be admitted that the Rhœbe blood was as successful when
crossed with the Laverack race as when braced up by the cross with Duke.
Also that Duke’s descendants from other crosses than that of Rhœbe were
better than any others, except her own so crossed descendants. Duke and
the Laveracks never were directly crossed together, and there is nothing
to be had from the pedigree of Kate, the grand-dam of Armstrong’s Dash
II., because it has been variously given at different times. On the
book, then, the merit was due to Rhœbe and Duke in equal proportions,
but the book is wrong. The reason for this being said is that the
brothers and sisters of Dan, by Duke from Rhœbe, were a poor lot. They
were great big 26 inch dogs and 24 inch bitches, and one of them, namely
Dick, in appearance with Dan made the most remarkable brace that ever
won the stake at the National Trials, and apparently there was not a pin
to choose between them, except that Dan was the faster. They hunted out
what is now the Waterworks field at Acton Reynold in a style of ranging,
pointing, and backing that could not be improved on even in imagination,
and the way they had of going down on their elbows, and standing up
behind, with their great flags on a line with their backs, and
consequently pointing upwards at an angle of 45 degrees, was a
revelation in style, just as the pace was, for it was so easily done
that they had lots of time to flick their sterns as they went. When they
were taken up without a mistake, no others, even without a mistake too,
could have been in the running. But Dick was a flat-catcher, wanting in
stamina, courage, and in nose, for he was a bad false pointer. Dan was
the only one of the litter, as far as they were known to the author,
that was a perfectly honest dog, and exhibited no more at a field trial
than in private. It is therefore not possible to discredit the Laverack
bitches that, when crossed with Dan, again and again produced litters in
which there was scarcely any difference between the best and the worst,
and in which, when the best died, the worst were good enough to find
themselves running against Ranger for the National Championship. But
this is not all the evidence in favour of the Laveracks, for, when heavy
dogs of that strain were crossed with the very moderate sisters of Dan,
the produce was far better than either the sires or dams. It was only
when the three sorts were blended that anything like uniformity, or a
distinct breed, appeared, and the offspring were far more true to type,
and merit in work, when the tail-male line was to Duke and the
tail-female a Laverack, than when the order was reversed. The Stud Book
shows the field trial winnings of the sort, and it will always be
remembered that once, when the Field Trial Derby was a very big stake,
four setter puppies of this breed, belonging to Mr. Llewellin, took the
four first places in it that could fall to setters. In other words, they
put out all the other setters and then defeated the best pointer. At
other times they won the brace stake one day, and one of the brace the
single stake the next. Then Count Wind’em and Novel on one occasion took
the two championships at Birmingham Show for good looks, and beat the
best pointers and setters at the National Trials as well. Count Wind’em
was about 25 inches at the shoulder, long and low, and neither hot
“muggy” weather in August, nor hillsides of the steepest on which grouse
lie, could tire him. One field trial judge of the day who saw the way he
did the heather against such dogs as Dash II., and other winners of the
time, compared the sight to that of a great racing cutter sailing round
a 20–rater. It was all done without an effort, and therein lay the
conserved energy that kept on as long as any man could follow.
In America this breed was first called the “Field Trial breed,” then
“Llewellin setters,” and also “The straight-bred sort,” by which it is
generally known in conversation. At the time of writing (June 1906) the
last pure bred one of the race that has run at an English field trial
was Mr. Llewellin’s Dan Wind’em, bred in the last century. But in
America nothing has ever been able to suppress the pure bred ones at the
field trials there. When they have not won, their 90 per cent. of pure
blood descendants have done so. In 1904 the author was on a visit to
America, and, having been requested to help judge their Champion Stake,
did so, with the result that one of these pure breds defeated all
comers. This dog was called “Mohawk,” and in the same kennel was another
setter named “Tony Man.” The latter had a slight trace of outside blood,
but the two were almost identical to look at. Tony Man had just
previously beaten Mohawk, and won the stake of the United States Field
Trial Club in first-rate style. But the trace of outside blood was so
very much regarded by the American sportsmen that the author heard Tony
Man offered for sale at £200, whereas he was assured on independent
evidence again and again that Mohawk could easily earn £500 a year at
the stud. This great difference is caused not at all by any great
difference in the prospective merits of the descendants of the two dogs,
but merely by the fact that those of one can be registered as
“straight-bred,” and those of the other cannot. The book of reference is
_The American Field’s_ Stud Book, where those with any cross whatever
are registered as English setters, and the others as “Llewellin
setters.” These straight-bred ones trace on all sides to seven dogs bred
in the sixties of last century—namely, Mr. Laverack’s Dash II., his
Fred, and his Moll III., Mr. Blinkhorn’s Lill I., Mr. Thomas Statter’s
Rhœbe, Sir F. Graham’s Duke, and Sir Vincent Corbet’s Slut.
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