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.)
The pointer being the offspring of the fox-hound and spaniel, is
consequently sprung from the two ancient races known as 'Sagaces' and
'Pugnaces' or 'Bellicosi'. He certainly evinces a larger share of the
'Bellicosi' blood than the setter, being ever ready for fight when
assailed, while the latter generally exhibits a conciliatory disposition
under the most trying circumstances.--L.]
It is the fox-hound searching for game by the scent, but more perfectly
under the control of the sportsman, repressing his cry of joy when he
finds his game, and his momentary pause, and gathering himself up in
order to spring upon it artificially, converted into a steady and
deliberate point. There still remains a strong resemblance, in
countenance and in form, between the pointer and the fox-hound, except
that the muzzle is shorter, and the ears smaller, and partly pendulous.
Seventy or eighty years ago, the breed of pointers was nearly white, or
varied with liver-coloured spots; some, however, belonging to the Duke
of Kingston, were perfectly black. This peculiarity of colour was
supposed to be connected with exquisite perfection of scent. That is not
the case with the present black pointers, who are not superior to any
others.
Mr. Daniel relates an anecdote of one of his pointers. He had a dog that
would always go round close to the hedges of a field before he would
quarter his ground. He seemed to have observed that he most frequently
found his game in the course of this circuit. [25]
Mr. Johnson gives the following characteristic sketches of the different
breeds of pointer:
THE SPANISH POINTER,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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