File:American game-bird shooting (1910) (14752298161).jpg

Identifier: americangamebird00grin (find matches)
Title: American game-bird shooting
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Grinnell, George Bird, 1849-1938
Subjects: Game and game-birds Hunting
Publisher: New York, Forest and stream publishing company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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vidence to humor them. In like manner, thereis evidence to console him who prefers a spaniel andpointer origin. For him who can impartially considerthe pertinent facts, there also is ample evidence thatwe do not know the origin of the setter. It is lost inthe mists of the ages. What are considered as finalities,at best are merely shrewd speculations concerning it. While recognizing that the act of pointing, in amore or less rudimentary form, is exhibited by span-iels and several other breeds of dogs, and, indeed, bycur dogs, under certain circumstances, it is never likethe intensity and efficiency of that displayed by settersand pointers. As a matter of speculation, it is muchmore plausible that the spaniel was crossed on the oldSpanish pointer, which was introduced into Englandcenturies ago, and that the cross-bred product mighthave been the setter. Here was the pointing instinctready to hand to breed into the spaniel, an exceedinglysimple matter as compared to the far-fetched theory
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Delivering bird to hand. DOGS 487 that it was implanted by education. This is sustainedby the admitted fact that while the setter has infinitelymore pointing instinct than has the spaniel, he in turnhas much less than has the pointer. It may be ob-jected that the setter does not show any physical re-semblance to the pointer. As a matter of fact, heshows a great deal, the chief distinction being in the coat. A cross of setter and pointer—the dropper may appear to be pure setter or pointer. By selection,the physical attributes of the pointer could soon bebred out, while the instinct to point would be addedto the many others which the two breeds, spaniel andpointer, possessed in common. As before remarked, the act of pointing is not theexclusive attribute of pointers and setters. The pointseems to be a necessary factor in the successful pursuitof birds, and is many times developed by the dog fromobservation, from a realization of its helpfulness ineffecting a capture. That a dog will c

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