I recently went into the kennels of a man who has started a comparatively short time ago, and who has been most energetic in his endeavors to produce a line of dark seal brindles, and who is much perplexed because he has a lot of stock on hand, while first rate in every other respect, are with coats as black as crows and not worth ten dollars apiece. He seemed very much surprised when I told him his mistake, but grateful to be shown a way out of his difficulty. A visit to another kennel not far from the last revealed the fact that the owner was advertising and sending largely to the West what he called black brindles, but as devoid of brindle as a frog is of feathers. His case was rather amusing, as he honestly believed that because the dog was a Boston terrier its color of necessity must be a brindle. He reminded me a good deal of a man who started a dog store in Boston a number of years ago who advertised in his windows a Boston terrier for sale cheap. Upon stepping in to see the dog all that presented itself to view was a dog, a cross between a fox and bull terrier. When the man was told of this, he made this amusing reply: "The dog was born in Boston, and he is a terrier. Why is he not a Boston terrier?" Upon telling him that according to his reasoning if the dog had been born in New York city he would be a New York terrier he smiled. Fortunately I had "Druid Pero" with me and said: "Here is a dog bred in my kennels at Cliftondale, Mass., that was a first prize winner at the last New York show, and yet he is a Boston terrier." After looking Pero carefully over he exclaimed: "Well, by gosh, they don't look much like brothers, but I guess some greenhorn will come along who will give me twenty-five dollars for him," and on inquiring a little later was told the green gentleman had called and bought the dog.

How to breed the dogs so that the brindle will not become too dark, with the bright reddish sheen that sparkles in the sun, is the important question, and I am surprised at the ignorance displayed by kennel men that one would naturally suppose would have made the necessary scientific experiments to obtain this desirable shading. Only a short time ago a doctor, a friend of mine, told me he had just started a kennel of Bostons, buying several bitches at a bargain on account of their being black in color, and that he proposed breeding them to a white dog to get puppies of a desirable brindle. He seemed quite surprised when told the only shades he could reasonably expect would be black, white and splashed, all equally undesirable.

The system adopted in our kennels some years ago to obtain seal brindles with correct markings and the desirable luster and reddish sheen to the coat is as follows:

We take a rich red, or light mahogany bitch, with perfect markings, that comes from a family noted for the brilliancy of their color, and without white in the pedigrees for a number of generations, and mate her always to a dark seal brindle dog with an ancestry back of him noted for the same color. The pups from these matings will come practically seventy-five per cent. medium seal brindles. We now take the females that approximate the nearest in shade to their mother, and mate them to a dark seal brindle dog always. The bitches that are the result of this union are always bred to a dark seal brindle dog. The females that come from the last union are bred to a medium seal brindle dog, but now comes the time to introduce a mahogany brindle dog as a sire next time, for if these last bitches were mated to a seal brindle dog a large per cent. of the pups would come too dark or even black. This system is used indefinitely and desirable seal brindles with white markings can thus be always obtained. To the best of my recollection we have had but one black dog in twenty years. We have demonstrated, we trust, so that all may understand how golden, mahogany, and seal brindles are obtained, and how they may be bred for all time without losing the brindle so essential, and we now pass on to the consideration of a far harder problem, the obtaining of the rich seal brindles from all undesirable colors, and we present to all interested in this important, and practically unknown and misunderstood, problem the result of a number of years extended and scientific experiments which, we confess, were disheartening and unproductive for a long time, but which ultimately resulted in success, the following rules to be observed, known as "The St. Botolph Color Chart."

In presenting this we are fully aware that as far as we know this is the only scientific system evolved up to date, also that there are a number of breeders of the American dog who maintain that this is an absolute impossibility, that breeding for color is as absurd as it is impractical, but we can assure these honest doubters that we have blazed a trail, and all they now have to do is simply to follow instructions and success will crown their efforts.