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SECTION III. 
THE TERRIERS. 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
THE OLD WORKING TERRIER. 
“Ay, see the hounds with frantic zeal 
The roots and earth uptear ; 
But the earth 1s strong, and the roots are long, 
They cannot enter there. 
Outspeaks the Squire, ‘Give room, I pray, 
And Ine the terriers in ; 
The warriors of the fight are they, 
And every fight they win. 
HERE can hardly have been a time 
ap since the period of the Norman Con- 
quest when the small earth dogs 
which we now call terriers were not known 
in these islands and used by sporting men 
as assistants in the chase, and by husband- 
men for the killing of obnoxious vermin. 
The two little dogs shown in the Bayeux 
tapestry running with the hounds in ad- 
vance of King Harold’s hawking party were 
probably meant for terriers. Dame Juliana 
Berners in the fifteenth century did not 
neglect to include the ‘“‘ Teroures”’ in her 
catalogue of sporting dogs, and a hundred 
years later Dr. Caius gave pointed recognition 
to their value in unearthing the fox and 
drawing the badger. 
‘“* Another sorte there is,’ wrote the 
doctor’s translator in 1576, ‘‘ which hunteth 
the Fox and the Badger or Greye onely, 
whom we call Terrars, because they (after 
the manner and custome of ferrets in search- 
ing for Connyes) creep into the grounde, 
and by that meanes make afrayde, nyppe 
and bite the Foxe and the Badger in such 
sorte that eyther they teare them in pieces 
with theyr teeth, beying in the bosome of 
the earth, or else hayle and pull them per- 
force out of theyr lurking angles, darke 
” 
yo 
—RING-OUZEL. 
dongeons, and close caues; or at the least 
through cocened feare drive them out of 
theire hollow harbours, in so much that they 
are compelled to prepare speedie flyte, and, 
being desirous of the next (albeit not the 
safest) refuge, are otherwise taken and in- 
trapped with snayres and nettes layde over 
holes to the same purpose. But these be 
the least in that kynde called Sagax.” 
The colour, size, and shape of the original 
terriers are not indicated by the early writers, 
and art supplies but vague and uncertain 
evidence. Nicholas Cox, who wrote of sport- 
ing dogs in ‘‘ The Gentleman’s Recreation ”’ 
(1667), seems to suggest that the type of 
working terrier was already fixed sufficiently 
to be divided into two kinds, the one 
having shaggy coats and straight limbs, the 
other smooth coats and short bent legs. 
Yet some years later another authority— 
Blome—in the same publication was more 
guarded in his statements as to the terrier 
type when he wrote: ‘“‘ Everybody that is 
a fox hunter is of opinion that he hath a 
good breed, and some will say that the 
terrier is a peculiar species of itself. I 
will not say anything to the affirmative or 
negative of the point.” 
Searching for evidence on the subject, 
