Other Terriers. 379 



rather, I should say, for the " Bewcastle terrier " 

 was a female. 



I was soon a willing listener to all the stories of 

 the feats this wonderful bitch " Bess " had per- 

 formed ; foxes killed " single-handed," otters bolted, 

 foulmarts and sweetmarts exterminated ; but all tales 

 were " capped " by one, where, in conjunction with 

 her owner, she killed twenty-three weasels out of a 

 large pack which attacked them one afternoon. 

 This was the usual weasel tale, when one, being 

 hunted and sorely pressed, squeaked or chattered 

 an alarm, and forthwith scores of little heads peered 

 from a stone wall, to be followed by the bodies of 

 the active little creatures, which swarmed round 

 man and dog. Both had to fight hard for their lives. 

 Bess was sorely bitten, and it was not until close on 

 two dozen ferocious little blood suckers had bitten 

 the dust that the survivors beat a retreat. Person- 

 ally, I always considered Bess a mongrel, and when 

 I found that her owner never saved her puppies, but 

 lent their dam out as a foster-mother to a greyhound 

 breeder, my opinion was in part justified. Still, she 

 was a stamp of terrier quite attractive, and possessed 

 the sense of a man. The way in which she once 

 ran alongside a stone fence to take a short cut to a 

 gap through which a hare we had started was likely 

 to go, proved her a poacher of the first water, and 



