'286 THE BOOK OF THE DOG. 



and Discord. Besides their Terrier-like character, general symmetry, and good coats, the 

 family is noticeable for the great beauty of its heads and necks. Their main defect, and 

 a serious one, is their weak, open feet. Too many of them, too, are narrow and light 

 in the thighs, with a tendency to be cow-hocked. In both these points the Trap blood 

 is a good corrective, and it is, indeed, to this cross that the Belvoir strain owes its best 

 successes. 



It might be thought that I had overlooked two important strains, those of Foiler and 

 Turk, the former an undoubted, the latter an alleged, son of Grip. Considering the great 

 value of the Foiler blood, such an omission would be little short of a crime. Foiler, however, 

 so far owes his successes to his daughter, and consequently it is scarcely necessary in a classi- 

 fication of strains to give him a place among the great families. Foiler himself was bred by 

 Whitmore, of whom I before spoke. His sire, Grip, was got by Grove Willie, a Terrier of 

 pure Grove blood, and the son of a Grove Nettle, but whether of tlie celebrated Grove Nettle 

 is, I believe, doubtful. Grip's dam was a bitch of old Devonshire blood, descended from dogs 

 belonging to the Rev. John Russell. Grip himself has been described to me as a square-built 

 workman-like dog, full of Terrier character. His son Foiler was also out of a bitch of Mr. 

 Russell's blood. Of this blood I have been unable to ascertain any details, but I strongly 

 suspect that it possessed very marked characteristics of its own, and that it is to this that 

 the Foiler blood owes certain peculiarities which distinguish it from any other strain. Old 

 Foiler himself, like Tyrant, fell upon evil times, when a real working Terrier met with very 

 little appreciation, and there is little doubt that in these days he would have won much higher 

 honours than ever fell to his share. At the stud, too, his career was cut short, like that of 

 Mr. Gibson's other noted sires, Tyke and Venture, by his untimely death. Still he had made 

 good use of his opportunities, and besides begetting Dorcas, he had by his repeated unions 

 with Moss laid the foundation of a whole host of winners. His only two sons of any repute 

 were Flinger and Flasher, two fair but not pre-eminently good dogs. Neither of them, as far 

 as I know, has left any noteworthy stock behind, probably from lack of opportunity. There 

 are, I believe, one or two sons or grandsons of Foiler, from Belvoir bitches, still in existence, 

 so it is not impossible that the strain may again be resuscitated in the male line. To judge 

 from present appearances, however, it is through Folly and Frolic, the dams of Bloomer and 

 Buffett, that Foiler will be best known to posterity. The main characteristics of the blood 

 are very strong coats, narrow chests, and good shoulders, with a peculiar type of head, long 

 and fox-like, but not in the least snipy. Another peculiarity of the blood is its tendency to 

 throw out dew-claws on the hind feet Indeed, I have seen a puppy closely in-bred to old 

 Foiler who was furnished with a double set of these appendages ! The defect of the blood is 

 its tendency to drooping quarters and low-set sterns, and consequently to an awkward crouch- 

 ing carriage. In this point the Trap blood is, as in the case of the Belvoir Terriers, a valuable 

 corrective. There is another peculiarity about the Foiler blood which makes it, when 

 judiciously handled, specially valuable to breeders, and that is the extraordinary persistence 

 with which the leading features of the family assert themselves, and the power which it has 

 of swamping and annihilating inferior lines. Bloom and her sister Blossom are, to my mind, 

 striking examples of this. I well remember looking at them at the Alexandra Palace Show, 

 where they first appeared, with a friend, who remarked on the entire absence of likeness either 

 to the Buffer or Bitters families, which were the two principal elements in their pedigree. The 

 difficulty was at once solved when we remembered that they were descended on both sides 

 from Foiler, whose best points were strikingly reproduced. Thus, if a breeder only gets a 



