CHAPTER XXVI 



THE TERRIER 



T WILL be necessary to treat the terrier family much as we 

 did the spaniels, by giving a general introduction, which 

 will, cover the ground from our first information regarding 

 them up to quite a recent date, considering what is known 

 of quite a number of breeds. The most singular thing 

 with regard to this group of dogs is that while writer after writer on 

 dogs of England has been so keen to prove that the mastiff and the bulldog 

 were purely productions of the British Isles, they have entirely ignored the 

 one breed group about which there could be no dispute. It is easy to find 

 European dogs with a decidedly family resemblance to mastiffs even of the 

 present time and to the bulldog of thirty to fifty years ago, but we have 

 failed to find anything like a terrier outside of the German pintscher, which 

 has a terrier resemblance. Whereas in the British Isles there is not only 

 one but a group of breeds only differing in type, but all with the same gen- 

 eral character of game, vermin dogs and useful companions. 



Our readers will by this time have had every evidence that we have no 

 belief in spontaneous origin of breeds, but that lack of care in breeding 

 and the crossing of various dogs of different sizes and characters produced 

 others that differed and were found useful for certain sports or certain pur- 

 poses. In the old books terriers are occasionally mentioned with what to 

 our present-day notions are ridiculous associations. Mongrel mastiffs, or 

 mongrel greyhounds are some of the terms used, and we thereupon laugh 

 at the terrier being kin to our huge mastiff. The old writer, however, never 

 thought of saying that he was a half-bred bear-fighting mastiff, but was from 

 one of the smaller specimens of the common dogs then grouped as mastiffs, 

 Caius's table of which will be found in the preceding chapter. So 

 with the greyhound there were what were called greyhounds for many 

 different sports. Caius mentions greyhounds as used for deer, fox "and 

 other beastes of semblable kinde ordained for the game of hunting 



Some are of a greater sorte and some of a lesser, some are smooth skynned 



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