363 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

 THE BEDLIXGTOX TERRIER. 



BY HAROLD WARNES. 



" I never barked when out of season ; 

 I never bit without a reason ; 

 I ne'er insulted weaker brother ; 

 Nor wronged by force or fraud another. 

 Though brutes are phiced a rank below, 

 Happy for man could he say so ! " 



— Blacklock. 



THIS gamest of all the terriers has been 

 known as a distinct and thoroughly 

 British breed for over a century, 

 which is, I think, a fairly ancient lineage. 

 There are various theories as to its original 

 parentage, but the one which holds that 

 he was the result of a cross between the 

 Otterhound and the Dandie Dinmont sug- 

 gests itself to me as the most probable one. 

 His characteristics strongly resemble in 

 many points both these breeds, and there 

 can be but httle doubt of his near relation- 

 ship at some time or other to the Dandie. 

 The earliest authentic record we have of 

 the Bcdlington was a dog named Old 

 Flint, who belonged to Squire Trevelyan, 

 and was whelped in 1782. The pedigree of 

 Mr. William Clark's Scamp, a dog well 

 known about 1792, is traced back to Old 

 Fhnt, and the descendants of Scamp were 

 traced in direct line from 1792 to 1873. 



A mason named Joseph Aynsley has the 

 credit for giving the name of " Bcdlington " 

 to this ^terrier in 1825. It was previously 

 known as the Rothbury Terrier, or the 

 Northern Counties Fox-terrier. 



Mr. Thomas J. Pickett, of Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne, was perhaps the earliest supporter of 

 the breed on a large scale, and his Tynedale 

 and TjTieside in especial have left their 

 names in the history of the Bcdlington. 

 Roferring to the origin of this terrier, Mr. 

 Pickett wTote in The Live Stock Journal in 

 1877 :- 



" Whilst a schoolboy I recollect one day 

 wandering in the woods of the Brandling 



estate of Gosforth, in Northumberland, 

 gathering primroses, when I met a wood- 

 man named David Edgar, who was accom- 

 panied by a Northern Counties Fox-terrier, 

 and who gave me a whelp by his celebrated 

 dog Pepper. This whelp was the first of the 

 breed I ever possessed. Being an ardent 

 admirer of this description of dog, I followed 

 up the breed, and have seen as many of 

 them as most people. ... I have in 

 my possession a copy of Tyneside's pedigree, 

 dated 1839, signed by the late Joseph 

 Aynsley, who was one of the first breeders 

 of this class of dog, and who acted as judge 

 at the first Bcdlington Show, and I quote 

 the following as a description of what a 

 Northern Counties Fox-terrier should be : 



" ' Colour. — Liver, sandy, blue-black, or 

 tan. 



" ' Shape. — The jaw rather long and small, 

 but muscular ; the head high and narrow 

 with a silky tuft on the top ; the hair rather 

 wiry on the back ; the eyes small and 

 rather sunk ; the ears long and hanging 

 close to the cheek, and slightly feathered 

 at the tip ; the neck long and muscular, 

 rising well from the shoulder ; the chest 

 deep, but narrow ; the body well propor- 

 tioned, and the ribs flat ; the legs must be 

 long in proportion to the body, the thinner 

 the hips are the better ; the tail small and 

 tapering, and slightly feathered. Altogether 

 they are a lathy-made dog.' " 



The present day Bcdlington very closely 

 resembles the dogs described by Aynsley, 

 excepting that, like a good many other 



