12 The Fox Terrier. 



1 800, on the highway to the extraordinary popularity he 

 enjoys at the present time. 



As the fox terrier was kriown then and a couple of 

 centuries earlier, the reader must not expect him to have 

 been a shapely, handsomely marked animal like the one of 

 the present day. Possibly any little dog that " Caius, the 

 profound clerk and ravenous devourer of learning/' had 

 running at his heels was black or brown coloured, long- 

 bodied, on short legs, the latter perhaps more or less 

 crooked ; and, if he were produced by a cross between 

 "the mongrel mastiff and the beagle," his weight might 

 be nearer 401b. than 151b., the latter no doubt the most 

 useful size for underground purposes. But old pictures of 

 terriers dating back 300 years illustrate mongrel-looking 

 creatures, some of them bearing more or less the distinctive 

 characteristic of the turnspit. Others show a considerable 

 trace of hound blood, but not one, so far as the writer has 

 come across, is hound marked, or bears any more white 

 than is usually found on the chest or feet of any dog. 

 Mr. J. A. Doyle, a well-known admirer of the fox terrier, 

 and who contributed the article thereon to "The Book of 

 the Dog" first published in 1881, says that when in Vienna 

 he noticed a painting of fruit, flowers, &c, with a dog in 

 the foreground, which, to all intents and purposes, was a 

 specimen of the fox terrier of the present day, both in 

 colour and general shape. The artist whose work the 

 painting was, bears the somewhat English name of 

 Hamilton, and flourished about a century and three- 

 quarters ago. The dictionaries, however, say he was a 

 Dutch painter. No earlier picture than this has been found 

 containing anything approaching the white and hound 

 marked fox terrier of to-day. 



