First Published: 1938
First Published 1938 - Hardcover with Dustjacket
Publisher: George G Harrop & Co Ltd, 320 pages
Size: 22.7cm x 15.5cm x 3.5cm approx
Weight : 735g approx
HARDCOVER REPRINT, 2009 (352 pages)
Publisher : Read Books; Illustrated Edition (14 Sept. 2009)
ISBN-10 : 1444652257
ISBN-13 : 978-1444652253
Size : 14cm x 21.6cm approx
PAPERBACK REPRINT, 2009 (352 pages)
Publisher : Foster Press; Illustrated Edition (July 24, 2009)
ISBN-10 : 1444699369
ISBN-13 : 978-1444699364
Size : 14cm x 21.6cm approx
Book Description:
Originally published in the 1930's. The author was a well known sportsman with much experience in working with many sporting dog breeds. This fascinating book contains much detailed history and anecdote which will prove of great interest to all who own or hunt with the various breeds. Contents include: The Dawn of the Dog - The Saluki - Foxhounds, Harriers and Beagles - The Chesapeake Bay Dog - The Dachshund - The Greyhound (three chapters) - Coursing Days - The Red Setter - Partridge Days - The Gallant Terrier - Manchester Terriers - The Dog in London Sport - Retrievers - The Spaniel - The Pointer - Deerhounds and Sport in Ireland - The Irish Wolfhound - The Scotch Deerhound - The Sealyham Terrier - Other Terriers and Little Dogs - The Zenith of the Dog. etc. The book contains some forty illustrations. Many of the earliest dog books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive.
FOREWORD (1938)
So, MY DEAR JIMMY, you are writing about dogs, and I may tell you that a better subject does not exist. Dogs cannot contradict you, nor bring libel actions against you. Further, I can assure you that the greater nonsense you write about dogs the larger will be your sales among women.
At this moment, as you well know, I have a dog, Cinna by name. Those who read history will no doubt remember that that admirable gentleman had a head to conceive, a heart to resolve, and a hand to execute any mischief So has Cinna to-day. I have just received a bill for a pair of curate's trousers.
The great necessity in dog-owners is patience. You, I know, are patient, for have I not watched you fish? It also requires patience to write about dogs, because dogs are frequently dull animals. Only occasional dogs are really clever. You remember, maybe, that dog of Dan Leahy's at Killarney, half Labrador, half heaven-knows-what.
Well, whatever it is, herding sheep, tracking a deer, retrieving a snipe, or being petted, he always does the right thing.
Your dogs, I am sure, do the right thing, and you are doing the right thing in writing about them.
CASTLEROSSE
PREFACE
THIS IS NO BOOK for the dog-breeder or the showbench hot-gospeller. It is, I hope, a book for the ordinary man or woman who has had a lot of fun and friendship, a good deal of boyish enchantment, with dogs; who perhaps has discovered that the love of a dog is a balm for wounds.
I have known many dogs since my father's old retriever, Black Bess, loomed on my childish horizon as an all-wise Mother of Dogs. Black Bess, to five-yearoId eyes, seemed to possess a wisdom and a divining sense denied to those grown-ups who ruled one's existence. There was a friendship between the dog and the child which somehow filled a gap that no human being could have stopped. That is no fantastic thought.
The dog has been the watchman of the house, shepherd of the sheep, warden of the oxen, nursemaid of the children, since the :first skin-clad man slept shiveringly on the naked ground, fearful of the wolf in the night.
In those spheres the dog stands out as the servant of man.
But the dog in sport, from the dimmest days of Gaelic deer-hunts, from the magnificently pictorial boar-hunts of French chivalry, to the present day, when he shivers beside you in a duck-hole on a bitter winter tide-line-when he flusters the skulking pheasant from a brambly ditch bottom - when he hunts the hare or fox or ranges the windy miles of a Scotch moor-here the dog is not merely the servant, but the friend, the fellow-sportsman, the sharer in man's most primitive and masculine delights.
I have tried in these chapters to give pictures of days which I have known in the still unspoiled places of that older, lovelier England which lingers stubbornly where no factory smoke stains the upper air. There is, thank God, plenty of it still. And in those precious memories, a common heritage to most of us, the dog was our partner.
I have to thank that eminent present-day authority Mr Edward C. Ash, whose monumental History of the Dog and other works are present-day milestones in dog history, for having read and corrected the proofs and for many valuable suggestions. I thank also Mr Nigel Holder for his help with the chapters dealing with retrievers. My acknowledgments are due likewise to the honorary secretaries of the various breed societies for their kind assistance with the standards of points.
The Sport and General Photographic Agency gave invaluable co-operation in securing most of the photographs.
That of the Egyptian Camel Corps was very kindly provided by His Excellency Ahmed Seddik Bey, Director-General of the Egyptian State Tourist Bureau, who is organizing sport for visiting sportsmen in Egypt.
J. WENTWORTH DAY, WICKEN, CAMBS
CONTENTS:
I. THE DAWN OF THE DOG : Egyptian and Norse Remains -The Dog of 5000 B.C. - The Wolf Type and the Desert Hound - The 'Dogs of War' - When the Late Tsar's Bear Dogs killed a Child - The First French Hunting Dogs - The Wolf Strain.
II. THE SALUKI, THE HOUND OF THE DESERT : Hunting Gazelle in the Libyan Desert - A Long Chase in the Wadi Natrun - The Oldest Hound in the World - A Heritage of Sporting History.
III. ON FOXHOUNDS, HARRIERS, AND BEAGLES : The Origin of the Foxhound - His Norman Blood - The Talbot Hound and Bloodhound - The Staghound Cross - The Old Southern Hound - The West Country Harrier - The Kerry Beagle - The Fastest Hounds in the World.
IV. THE FIRST GENTLEMAN IN AMERICA : The Chesapeake Bay Dog - An Individual and an Aristocrat - The Romance of his Beginnings - Points to look for.
V. A LAMENT FOR THE DACHSHUND : The Drawer of Badgers - The Sussex Squire and his Bell-mouthed Beagles - A Real' Rabbity Day ' - And a New Use for the Dachshund.
VI. THE GREYHOUND : Some Ancient History - Lord Wentworth's Quest - Turbervile on Coursing - Royal Hunting.
VII. THE GREYHOUND II : How his Name began - The Duke of Norfolk's Rules - The Swaffham Coursing Society - Lord Orford's Dramatic Death - A Winter's Tale on Newmarket Heath.
VIII. THE GREYHOUND: III : Some Great Greyhounds, their Feats and Owners The Great Snowball Family - Freak Bets and Challenges - Dame Juliana Berners' Points of the Perfect Hound - The Amazing Miss Richards and her Love Affairs - Lobengula's Italian Greyhound.
IX. COURSING DAYS ON FEN AND SEA-MARSH : High Fen and the Gypsies - Farmer-sportsmen of the Right Sort - Old Essex Days - Memories of Potton Island - The Devil in Blue Fire.
X. THE WILD IRISHMAN : The Red Setter - His Ways, Charm, and Drawbacks - Some Records and Roots of the Breed - The Loftus Diary and other Notes of Early Types.
XI. OLD PARTRIDGE DAYS AND DOGS : Spanish Pointers - Fan, the Fat Spaniel, and Cheero, the Irishman - When King Charles churned the Cockerel - Shooting at High Fen.
XII. THE GAY AND GALLANT TERRIERS : Polecat in the Willow Holt - The Epic of Togo - The Last of the " Fen Tigers " - The Otter Affair - And the Final Tragedy.
XIII. THE SWEET LITTLE MANCHESTER : "An active, graceful little dog" - The White English Terrier - Billy and his Hundred Rats in less than Five Minutes - " Stonehenge " on Colour and Points.
XIV. THE DOG IN LONDON SPORT : Hunting in Hyde Park - The Stag in the Edgware Road - The Two Hounds in Piccadilly - Old London Race Meetings - Rat-killing Records - A Dog--fighter of To-day.
XV. THE ORIGIN OF RETRIEVERS : Some Early Opinions and Definitions - " Stone- henge " on the Ideal Retriever - "Idstone's Views” - Curlies, Flat-coats, Labradors, and Goldens - Some History rediscovered.
XVI. THE MASCULINE RETRIEVER : Black Bess and the First Pheasant - Nell, the Adder-catcher of Langenhoe - Bruno, the Curlycoat of Salcott - Tide-line and Snipe Fen.
XVII. THE MERRY SPANIELS : The Old Sussex Squire and his Rabbiting Pack The Master of Shooting Spaniels - Charlie Crisp of Upware and his 'Village Dog '- The Spaniel who was going to be put on Skates - Salt-marsh Dawn - The Looker and the Bull-Ernest Parr and his Jess.
XVIII. THE GENTLEMANLY POINTER : A Declining Aristocrat - Old Days in Norfolk - Pointers at Killarney - The Pointer who went Home m Disgust - And the other one who pointed the Weather - With a Note on the Pointer who pointed a Partridge in a Pike in a Pool - And the Pointing Pig just to finish the Story.
XIX. THE LAST WILD RED DEER OF IRELAND : Stalking in the Fairy Glens of the Castlerosse Country - Deerhound Country - Old Dan Donahue, the Best Stalker in Ireland - The Place of the Druid and the Fairy - The Hags' Glen.
XX. THE IRISH WOLFHOUND :
A Breed which claims 1800 Years of History! - Early Records of a Noble Hound - A Pirate, his Daughter, and his "Dirty Grey Dog" - The Dog which could smell Royal Blood - Lord Caledon's Pure Stock - The Founding of the Irish Wolfhound Club - Points to look for - The Breed To-day.
XXI. THE SCOTCH DEERHOUND : The Hounds who saved a Knight's Head - Early Types and Stories - Deer Drives and Deercoursing - Scrope's Story of Tarff and Derig - Queen Victoria's Support of the Breed - Prince Albert's Bran - The Breed To-day.
XXII. THE SUPER-SPORTING SEALYHAM : Sir Jocelyn Lucas and his Pack - The Origin of the Breed - The Pembrokeshire Terrier - Game for Badger, Polecat, Otter, and Rabbit - Real Hound-work - Some Points to look for.
XXIII. SOME LITTLE DOGS WHO DESERVE BETTER THINGS : The Over-pampered Cairn and the Tea-table Skye - Give them both a Chance - The Admirable Dandie and the Lion-hearted Irishman - A Word on the Airedale - The Poodle, the Pekinese, and the Pomeranian.
XXIV. THE ZENITH OF THE DOG : A Final Survey of the Dog's Progress in Sport - The Spectacular Rise of Greyhound Racing - Twenty Million Pounds' Worth of Capital - Thirty Million People pay to see it - Back to the Sport of the Ancient Greeks.
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
OVER THE WALL
AN IBEX TREED BY A TERRIER IN THE RED SEA HILLS IN EGYPT
THE SALUKI
THE ENGLISH SCENE
THE BRAES OF DERWENT DOG HOUND 'COMRADE'
CHAMPION 'DAUNTLESS OF REYNALTON'
THE 'JELLY DOGS'
DR HELEN lNGLEBY's CHESAPEAKE BAY RETRIEVER
THE DACHSHUND Ss STILL IN ROYAL FAVOUR
A GOOD SPECIMEN OF THE ATTRACTIVE LONGHAIRED DACHSHUND
“SLIPPED! "
A REAL HARE THIS TIME!
MRS PERCY ADAMS’S BELLA DONNA'
GREYHOUND RACING AT STAMFORD BRIDGE
WAITING TO BE SLIPPED
OVER THE JUMP
MRS H. S. LLOYD's ‘EXQUISITE MODEL OF WAR'
THE LATE KING GEORGE'S 'SANDRINGHAM SPARKLE'
MAJOR J. D. LLOYD'S ENGLISH SETTER FIELD TRIAL CHAMPION 'VINEYARD OF OTHAM’
THE KING’S KENNELMAN WITH A GROUP OF KING GEORGE V's ENGLISH SPRINGER SPANIELS BY A LAKE IN WINDSOR PARK
ONE OF THE LAST OF THE OLD FENMEN DIGGING PEAT ON BURWELL FEN
‘SUPREME SELECT'
MR J. R. BARLOW'S WIRE-HAIRED FOX-TERRIER ‘CRACKLEY SURETHING'
FLAT RACING AT THE BELL MEAD KENNELS AT HASLEMERE
A ‘RABBITY DAY' ON THE MARSHES
MR NIGEL HOLDER, THE WELL-KNOWN GUN-DOG TRAINER AND BREEDER, TAKING A BIRD FROM HIS
GOLDEN RETRIEVER ‘DUSTY'
A MAGNIFICENT HEAD STUDY OF A LABRADOR RETRIEVING A GROUSE
WAITING FOR FLIGHT
WILL LEAVETT OF TOLLESBURY
A GROUP OF MUSSETTS
'JESS'
THE DUKE OF MONTROSE
THE BEST DOG OUT OF IRELAND FOR THE ALL-ROUND SHOOTING MAN
MR I. W. EVERETT's IRISH WOLFHOUND ‘FELIXSTOWE KELCULLY'
TWO OF MRS DUNLOP-HILL'S PRIZE-WINNING SCOTCH DEERHOUNDS
A TYPICAL FIELD TRIAL
THE SEALYHAM PACK
MRS BOYD's FRENCH POODLE 'FUDGE OF PIPERSCROFT'
About the Author
James Wentworth Day (21 April 1899 – 5 January 1983)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Wentworth_Day
