i88 DOGS AND ALL ABOUT THEM 



show were equally obscure and unknown a few years back. 

 Thirty-seven years ago the now popular Irish Terrier was prac- 

 tically unknown in England, and the Scottish Terrier was only 

 beginning to be recognised as a distinct breed. The Welsh 

 Terrier is quite a new introduction that a dozen or so years ago 

 was seldom seen outside the Principality ; and so recently as 

 1881 the Airedale was merely a local dog known in Yorkshire 

 as the Waterside or the Bingley Terrier. Yet the breeds just 

 mentioned are all of unimpeachable ancestry, and the circum- 

 stance that they were formerly bred within limited neighbour- 

 hoods is in itself an argument in favour of their purity. We 

 have seen the process of a sudden leap into recognition enacted 

 during the past few years in connection with the white terrier 

 of the Western Highlands a dog which was familiarly known 

 in Argyllshire centuries ago, yet which has only lately emerged 

 from the heathery hillsides around Poltalloch to become an 

 attraction on the benches at the Crystal Palace and on the 

 lawns of the Botanical Gardens ; and the example suggests 

 the possibility that in another decade or so the neglected 

 Sealyham Terrier, the ignored terrier of the Borders, and the 

 almost forgotten Jack Russell strain, may have claimed a due 

 recompense for their long neglect. 



There are lovers of the hard-bitten working "earth dogs " 

 who still keep these strains inviolate, and who greatly prefer 

 them to the better-known terriers whose natural activities 

 have been too often atrophied by a system of artificial breeding 

 to show points. Few of these old unregistered breeds would 

 attract the eye of the fancier accustomed to judge a dog 

 parading before him in the show ring. To know their value 

 and to appreciate their sterling good qualities, one needs to 

 watch them at work on badger or when they hit upon the line 

 of an otter. It is then that they display the alertness and the 

 dare-devil courage which have won for the English terriers 

 their name and fame. 



An excellent working terrier was the white, rough-haired 

 strain kept by the Rev. John Russell in Devonshire and 



