22 The Fox Terrier. 



large, medium, and small in size, too, is apparent, and that 

 such were both smooth and rough or wire-haired ; but how 

 they were originally produced there is no evidence to show. 



The early-time terriers were bred for work and not for 

 ornament, and, unless they would go to ground after the 

 manner of the ferret, their heads would, not be kept long 

 out of the huge butt of water in the stableyard. Rats they 

 had to kill, and, unfortunately, often enough cats too ; but 

 fox terriers were less seldom used to work as spaniels or 

 retrievers than is the case to-day. Our ancestors believed 

 in each dog having its own vocation : the setter to set, the 

 pointer to point, the spaniel to beat the coverts, and the 

 terrier to make pilgrimages underground. Nor did they 

 condescend to train the latter to run after rabbits, as in 

 coursing matches ; and they took for the most part the 

 bull terrier to bait the badger and perform in the rat pit. 



"A dash of bulldog blood " was always said to improve 

 the pluck of a terrier (it certainly does not add to his 

 elegance of form), and so no doubt came the brindle marks 

 on some few of the modern fox terriers. Careful crossing 

 has almost effaced the first-named, now considered a 

 blemish, and in its place the rich tan and black, or hound 

 markings, have been introduced. Originally these gaudy 

 colours were produced by some beagle blood, which, I 

 fancy, came to be infused between thirty and forty years 

 ago. The large, flapping, almost hound-like, ears which still 

 occasionally crop up, and were excessively common twenty 

 years back, likewise suggest this beagle cross, and I have 

 no doubt, from a modern black and tan terrier and a 

 hound-marked, pure beagle, careful selection would in very 

 few generations produce a fox terrier with a black and tan 

 head and a patch at the root of the stern. Of a whilom 



