315 



SECTION III. 



THE TERRIERS. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



THE OLD WORKING TERRIER. 



" Ay, see (he hounds with frantic zeal 

 The roots and earth uptear ; 

 But the earth is strong, and the roots are long. 



They cannot enter there. 

 Outspeaks the Squire, ' Give room, I pray. 



And hie the terriers in ; 

 The warriors of the fight are they. 

 And every fight they win.' " 



— Ring-Ouzel. 



THERE can hardly have been a time 

 since the period of the Norman Con- 

 quest when the small earth dogs 

 which we now call terriers were not known 

 in these islands and used by sporting men 

 as assistants in the chase, and by husband- 

 men for the killing of obnoxious vermin. 

 The two little dogs shown in the Bayeux 

 tapestry running with the hounds in ad- 

 vance of King Harold's hawking party were 

 probably meant for terriers. Dame Juliana 

 Berners in the fifteenth century did not 

 neglect to include the " Teroures " in her 

 catalogue of sporting dogs, and a hundred 

 years later Dr. Caius gave pointed recognition 

 to their value in unearthing the fox and 

 drawing the badger. 



" Another sorte there is," wrote the 

 doctor's translator in 1576, " which hunteth 

 the Fox and the Badger or Greye onely, 

 whom we call Terrars, because they (after 

 the manner and custome of ferrets in search- 

 ing for Connyes) creep into the grounde, 

 and by that meanes make afrayde, nyppe 

 and bite the Foxe and the Badger in such 

 sorte that eyther they teare them in pieces 

 with theyr teeth, beying in the bosome of 

 the earth, or else hayle and pull them per- 

 force out of theyr lurking angles, darke 



dongeons, and close caues ; or at the least 

 through cocened feare drive them out of 

 theire hollow harbours, in so much that they 

 are compelled to prepare speedie flyte, and, 

 being desirous of the next (albeit not the 

 safest) refuge, are otherwise taken and in- 

 trapped with snayres and nettes layde over 

 holes to the same purpose. But these be 

 the least in that kynde called Sagax." 



The colour, size, and shape of the original 

 terriers are not indicated by the early writers, 

 and art supplies but vague and uncertain 

 evidence. Nicholas Cox, who wrote of sport- 

 ing dogs in ■■ The Gentleman's Recreation " 

 (1667), seems to suggest that the type of 

 working terrier was already fixed suificiently 

 to be divided into two kinds, the one 

 having shaggy coats and straight limbs, the 

 other smooth coats and short bent legs. 

 Yet some years later another authority — 

 Blome — in the same publication was more 

 guarded in his statements as to the terrier 

 type when he wrote : " 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 

 will not say anything to the affirmative or 

 negative of the point." 



Searching for evidence on the subject, 



