CHAPTER XXV
THE SPORTING SPANIEL

I. THE SPANIEL FAMILY.-The Spaniel family is without any doubt one of the most important of the many groups which are included in the canine race, not only on account of its undoubted antiquity, and, compared with other families, its well authenticated lineage, but also because of its many branches and subdivisions, ranging in size from the majestic and massive Clumbers to the diminutive toys which we are accustomed to associate with fair ladies' laps and gaily-decked pens at our big dog shows.

Moreover, the different varieties of Setters undoubtedly derive their origin from the same parent stock, since we find them described by the earlier sporting writers as " setting " or " crouching " Spaniels, in contradistinction to the " finding " or " springing " Spaniel, who flushed the game he found without setting or pointing it. As time went on, the setting variety was, no doubt, bred larger and longer in the leg, with a view to increased pace ; but the Spaniel-like head and coat still remain to prove the near connection between the two breeds.

All the different varieties of Spaniels, both sporting and toy, have, with the exception of the Clumber and the Irish Water Spaniel (who is not, despite his name, a true Spaniel at all), a common origin, though at a very early date we find them divided into two groups-viz., Land and Water Spaniels, and these two were kept distinct, and bred to develop those points which were most essential for their different spheres of work. The earliest mention of Spaniels to be found in

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English literature is contained in the celebrated " Master of Game," the work of Edward Plantagenet, second Duke of York, and Master of Game to his uncle, Henry IV., to whom the work is dedicated. It was written between the years 14o6 and 1413, and although none of the MSS., of which some sixteen are in existence, is dated, this date can be fairly accurately fixed, as the author was appointed Master of Game in the former and killed at Agincourt in the latter year. His chapter on Spaniels, however, is mainly a translation from the equally celebrated " Livre de Chasse," of Gaston Comte de Foix, generally known as Gaston Phoebus, which was written in 1387, so that we may safely assume that Spaniels were well known, and habitually used as aids to the chase both in France and England, as early as the middle of the fourteenth century.

In the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century the Spaniel was described bymanywriters on sporting subjects ; but there is a great similarity in most of these accounts, each author apparently having been content to repeat in almost identical language what had been said upon the subject by his predecessors, without importing any originality or opinions of his own. Many of these works, notwithstanding this defect, are very interesting to the student of Spaniel lore, and the perusal of Blaine's Rural Sports, Taplin's Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Scott's Sportsman's Repository, and Needham's Complete Sportsman, can be recommended to all who wish to study the history of the development of the various modern breeds. The works of the French writers, De Cominck, De Cherville, Blaze, and Megnin, are well worth reading, while of late years the subject has been treated very fully by such British writers as the late J. H. Walsh (" Stonehenge "), Mr. Vero Shaw, Mr. Rawdon Lee, Colonel Claude Cane, and Mr. C. A. Phillips.

Nearly all of the early writers, both French and English, are agreed that the breed came originally from Spain, and we may assume that such early authorities as Gaston Phoebus, Edward Plantagenet, and Dr. Caius had good reasons for