The Marlborough Blenheim has retained several of the ancestral points.  Although this variety is of the same family, and has the same name, as the short-nosed Blenheim of the present day, there is a great deal of difference between the two types.  The Marlborough is higher on the legs, which need not be so fully feathered.  He has a much longer muzzle and a flatter and more contracted skull.  The Marlborough possesses many of the attributes of a sporting Spaniel; but so also does the modern Blenheim, although perhaps in a lesser degree.  He has a very good scent.  Mr. Rawdon B. Lee states that “the Blenheims of Marlborough were excellent dogs to work the coverts for cock and pheasant, and that excepting in colour there is in reality not much difference in appearance between the older orange and white dogs (not as they are to-day, with their abnormally short noses, round skulls, and enormous eyes), and the liver and white Cockers which H. B. Chalon drew for Daniel’s Rural Sports in 1801.”

This will bear out the statement that the smaller type of Spaniel may be descended from the Cockers.

The ground colour of this dog is white, with chestnut encircling the ears to the muzzle, the sides of the neck are chestnut, as are also the ears.  There is a white blaze on the forehead, in the centre of which should be a clear lozenge-shaped chestnut spot, called the beauty spot, which by inbreeding with other varieties is fast being lost.  Chestnut markings are on the body and on the sides of the hind-legs.  The coat should incline to be curly; the head must be flat, not broad, and the muzzle should be straight.  The chestnut should be of a rich colour.

The four varieties—­the King Charles, Tricolour or (as he has been called) Charles I. Spaniel, the modern Blenheim, and the Ruby—­have all the same points, differing from one another in colour only, and the following description of the points as determined by the Toy Spaniel Club serves for all:—­

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HEAD—­Should be well domed, and in good specimens is absolutely semi-globular, sometimes even extending beyond the half-circle, and projecting over the eyes, so as nearly to meet the upturned nose.  EYES—­The eyes are set wide apart, with the eyelids square to the line of the face, not oblique or fox-like.  The eyes themselves are large, and dark as possible, so as to be generally considered black, their enormous pupils, which are absolutely of that colour, increasing the description.  There is always a certain amount of weeping shown at the inner angles.  This is owing to a defect in the lachrymal duct.  STOP—­The “stop” or hollow between the eyes is well marked, as in the Bulldog, or even more so; some good specimens exhibit a hollow deep enough to bury a small marble.  NOSE—­The nose must be short and well turned up between the eyes, and without any indication of artificial displacement afforded by a deviation to