The Airedale or B ingle y Terrier. 377 



CHAPTER XXVIL THE AIREDALE OR BINGLEY 

 TERRIER. 



BY CORSINCON. 



THE following first appeared in the "Country" newspaper, and led to 

 correspondence, in which I was urged by breeders and owners to call the 

 dog the Airedale, not the Bingley Terrier, as being more applicable, 

 the breed not being restricted to Bingley, but well known all over that 

 district of Yorkshire as Airedale. 



" I have," I then wrote, "no intention of setting up a new breed, or to 

 claim that I have manufactured one ; I merely take the liberty of giving 

 what appears to me a suitable name to an old and established variety 

 manufactured by accident or design probably before I was born. The 

 dog I allude to has already got ' a local habitation,' and names enough 

 to pick and choose from, and yet I have ventured to giv,e him another 

 in my gallery of ' dogs of the day.' 



"My reasons for doing so are that Bingley terrier is a more ready name 

 and less confusing than some of his cognomens ' broken-haired or 

 working terrier,' for instance, by which title he is called in dog show 

 catalogues ; a name which, although correctly descriptive of my Bingley 

 terrier, is equally so of quite a legion of British dogs that differ from 

 him widely in many points. 



' ' Then I have so many precedents for adopting a local name. There is 

 the Yorkshire terrier, that was wont to be called the Scotch terrier, and 

 still is by some committees of shows and others, for no apparent reason, 

 except that it is so unlike the Scotch terrier proper ; the Aberdeen terrier, 

 a varmint little dog, which the Scotch Terrier Club also call the Scotch 

 terrier, and also probably for no other reason than that he is not ; there 

 is, too, the Manchester terrier, the Bedlington terrier, and others with 

 cognomens borrowed from the localities whence they sprung or where 

 they abound. I might, it is true, have called it with much propriety the 

 Airedale terrier, for the Agricultural Society ' of that ilk ' appear to 

 have at their shows taken him specially under their fostering care ; but 

 then they make Bingley their head- quarters, and at Bingley Show of all 

 others, in my experience, he is to be met with in much the strongest force, 



