WEST HIGHLAND WHITE TERRIER 247 



In those days two things and two things only were 

 imperatively necessary : pluck and capacity to get at the 

 quarry. This entailed that the body in which the pluck 

 was enshrined must be small and most active, to get at the 

 innermost recesses of the lair, and that the body must be pro- 

 tected by the best possible teeth and jaws for fighting, on a 

 strong and rather long neck and directed by a most capable 

 brain. It is held that feet turned out a little are better for 

 scrambling up rocks than perfectly straight Fox-terrier like 

 feet. In addition, it was useful to have your dog of a colour 

 easy to see when in motion, though no great weight was laid 

 upon that point, as in the days before newspapers and trains 

 men's eyes were good, as a rule. Still, the quantity of white 

 in the existing terriers all through the west coast of Scotland 

 shows that it must have been rather a favoured colour. 



White West Highland Terriers were kept at Poltalloch sixty 

 years ago, and so they were first shown as Poltalloch Terriers. 

 Yet although they were kept in their purest strain in 

 Argyllshire, they are still to be found all along the west coast 

 of Scotland, good specimens belonging to Ross-shire, to Skye, 

 and at Baliachulish on Loch Leven, so that it is a breed with 

 a long pedigree and not an invented breed of the present day. 

 Emphatically, they are not simply white coloured Scottish 

 Terriers, and it is an error to judge them on Scottish Terrier 

 lines. They are smaller than the average Scottie, more 

 " foxy " in general conformation straight limbed, rather 

 long, rather low, and active in body, with a broad forehead, 

 light muzzle and underjaw, and a bright, small intelligent eye. 

 Colonel Malcolm, of Poltalloch, who is recognised as the great 

 authority on the breed, lays stress upon the quality of the coat. 

 " The outer coat," he says, " should be very soft on the fore- 

 head and get gradually harder towards the haunches, but the 

 harsh coat beloved of the show bench is all nonsense, and is the 

 easiest thing in the world to ' fake/ as any one can try who will 

 dip his own hair into the now fashionable ' anturic ' baths. 

 The outer coat should be distinctly long, but not long in the 



