316 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



one finds that perhaps the earliest references 

 to the colours of terriers were made by 

 Daniel in his " Field Sports " at the end of 

 the eighteenth century, when he described 

 two sorts, the one rough, short-legged, and 

 long - backed, very strong, and " most 

 commonly of a black or yellowish colour, 

 mixed with white " evidently a hound- 

 marked dog ; and another smooth-coated 

 and beautifully formed, with a shorter 

 body and more sprightly appearance, 

 " generally of a reddish brown colour, or 

 black with tanned legs." 



Gilpin's portrait of Colonel Thornton's 

 celebrated Pitch, painted in 1790, presents a 

 terrier having a smooth white coat with a 

 black patch at the set-on of the undocked 

 tail, and black markings on the face and 

 ears. The dog's head is badly drawn and 

 small in proportion ; but the body and 

 legs and colouring would hardly disgrace 

 the Totteridge kennels of to-day. Fox- 

 terriers of a noted strain were depicted 

 from life by Reinagle in the picture here re- 

 produced from "The Sportsman's Cabinet," 

 published over a hundred years ago. But 

 for his cropped ears, the white dog in the 

 centre might not be overlooked in the 

 modern show ring, so clearly is he of the 

 accepted wire-hair Fox-terrier type. 



In the text accompanying the engraving 

 a minute account is given of the peculiarities 

 and working capacities of the terrier. We 

 are told that there were two breeds : the 

 one wire-haired, larger, more powerful, 

 and harder bitten ; the other smooth-haired 

 and smaller, with more style. The wire- 

 hairs were white with spots, the smooths 

 were black and tan, the tan apparently 

 predominating over the black. The same 

 writer states that it was customary to 

 take out a brace of terriers with a pack of 

 hounds, a larger and a smaller one, the 

 smaller dog being used in emergency when 

 the earth proved to be too narrow to admit 

 his bigger companion. It is well known 

 that many of the old fox hunters have 

 kept their special breeds of terrier, and 

 the Belvoir, the Grove, and Lord Middle- 

 ton's are among the packs to which par- 

 ticular terrier strains have been attached. 



That even a hundred years ago terriers 

 were bred with care, and that certain 

 strains were held in especial value, is shown 

 by the recorded fact that a litter of seven 

 puppies was sold for twenty-one guineas 

 a good price even in these days and that 

 on one occasion so high a sum as twenty 

 guineas was paid for a full-grown dog. At 

 that time there was no definite and well- 

 established breed recognised throughout the 

 islands by a specific name ; the embracing 

 title of " Terrier " included all the varieties 

 which have sincebeen carefully differentiated. 

 But very many of the breeds existed in their 

 respective localities awaiting national re- 

 cognition. Here and there some squire or 

 huntsman nurtured a particular strain and 

 developed a type which he kept pure, and 

 at many a manor-house and farmstead in 

 Devonshire and Cumberland, on many a 

 Highland estate and Irish riverside where 

 there were foxes to be hunted or otters to be 

 killed, terriers of definite strain were re- 

 ligiously cherished. Several of these still 

 survive, and are as respectable in descent 

 and quite as important historically as some 

 of the favoured and fashionable champions 

 of our time. They do not perhaps possess 

 the outward beauty and distinction of type 

 which would justify their being brought 

 into general notice, but as workers they 

 retain all the fire and verve that are required 

 in dogs that are expected to encounter such 

 vicious vermin as the badger and the fox. 



Some of the breeds of terriers seen nowa- 

 days in every dog show were equally obscure 

 and unknown a few years back. Thirty-five 

 years ago the now popular Irish Terrier 

 was practically 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 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 

 circumstance that they were formerly bred 

 within limited neighbourhoods is in itself 

 an argument in favour of their purity. 



