THE AIREDALE TERRIER. 



BY F. H. F. MERCER. 



IT requires no slight stretching of the term to include this 

 giant in the same category with the midgets of his 

 genus. It seems unnatural to call a dog standing 

 higher at the shoulder than many Foxhounds, and weigh- 

 ing fifty to sixty pounds, by the same generic title as the 

 three-pound Black and Tan, or the sprightly Fox Terrier. 

 Yet, though he cannot "go to earth," the Airedale is an 

 inveterate verminer; and if we call him not a Terrier, how 

 else can he be known \ 



Hugh Dalziel ( ' ' Corsincon " ) claims the distinction of 

 having christened this rough-and-ready tyke with the 

 pretty name he bears. In the earlier dog shows of the 

 northern counties of England, where specimens first ap- 

 peared, they were scheduled as " Broken-haired or Work- 

 ing Terriers," or as "Waterside Terriers," by which latter 

 name they were known at home. 



"I suggested," writes Mr. Dalziel, "that the name 

 Bingley Terrier would be a more distinctive cognomen, and 

 applicable, inasmuch as Bingley seemed to me to be the 

 center around which this Terrier was to be met with in the 

 greatest numbers. Several of my correspondents, who were 

 breeders and exhibitors, suggested to me that Airedale 

 better represented the home of this Terrier. This I adopted, 

 and the name Airedale Terrier has attached to the breed 

 ever since." 



My information, it may be well to mention, derived from 

 a Yorkshireman who has had to do with these Terriers all 

 his life (he is now upward of fifty), fully bears out what 

 Mr. Dalziel has written. 



As the Airedale was bred by the Yorkshiremen simply 



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