8 The Fox Terrier. 



but a sorry character in his lifetime, for it was said he " was 

 esteemed as a most impudent person ; ... he gets 

 a livelihood by bold practices . . . originally a ruler 

 of books and paper, who had since practiced for divers 

 years progging tricks, in employing necessitous persons to 

 write in several arts." Blome's description may, however, 

 be interesting to the curious, so here it is. " The terrier is 

 a very small dog, used for hunting the fox and the badger, 

 his business being to go into the earths and bay them 

 that is, to keep them in an angle (a fox's earth having 

 divers) whilst they are dug out, for by their baying or 

 barking is known whereabouts the fox is, that he may be 

 the better dug out. And for this use the terrier is very 

 serviceable, being of an admirable scent to find out. A 

 couple of terriers are commonly used, in order that a fresh 

 one may be put in to relieve that which first went under 

 ground." There is nothing particularly wrong in the above, 

 nor is there in the following extract from the same author : 

 " Everybody that is a fox hunter is of opinion that he hath 

 a good breed, and some will say that the terrier is a 

 peculiar species of itself. I shall not say anything to the 

 affirmative or negative of the point." Blome concludes 

 by saying that the cross already mentioned " generally 

 proves good ; the result thereof hath courage and a thick 

 skin as participating of the cur, and is mouthed for the 

 beagle." 



Whatever was the case during the seventeenth century, 

 there is no doubt that now the "terrier is a peculiar species 

 of itself" careful and judicious selection through a series 

 of generations having made it as much so as any other dog 

 we possess. A thick skin is quite as useful a commodity 

 in the canine as it is in the human race, but the old writer 



