Charlie Littleworth' s Opinion. 137 



small, toyish and light in bone than for being oversized — 

 but I do not advocate the use of great overgrown sires. " 



The Littleworths have for generations been a family of 

 huntsmen, and, although following their respective masters 

 in keeping their hounds up to a high standard of excellence, 

 have never forgotten their admiration for the fox terrier. 

 Time after time the present representative of the house, 

 Charles Littleworth, Wembworthy, North Devon, and 

 huntsman, too, has found occasions when the little dog was 

 a necessity, so he has always kept some few running about, 

 many of them good enough to more than hold their own in 

 public competition. Yes, Charlie Littleworth is one of the 

 few modern huntsmen who knew the fox terrier in his two 

 aspects, as a show dog and as a worker. His opinion 

 thereon I give in his own words, and the only preface they 

 need is the statement that he has taken an interest in and 

 kept fox terriers for more than a quarter of a century. 



" The fox terrier at the present day has attained, by ' fine 

 breeding ' (in-breeding) too great a delicacy and too high 

 an excellency in fineness of coat and bone for really hard 

 work. In many instances the modern standard is only 

 useful for show purposes ; perhaps he can kill a rat, and he 

 is elegant as a drawing-room companion. In training a fox 

 terrier for his actually legitimate work a mistake is too 

 often made in at first entering him to game above ground. 

 When he can find it so without much trouble, the natural 

 inclination to look for it in the earths is, in a degree, lost, 

 and once a fox or badger is tackled above ground, in which, 

 perhaps, a great deal of punishment is given and received 

 on both sides, an ordinary terrier does not relish going into 

 the same amount of hard knocks and bites in the dark. 

 Let him as a beginning smell about the earth, and entice 



