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earth, or kill him therein, was found the most useful for the purpose. So long as he could do this, appearance and colour were not much taken into consideration.

About 1760, Daniel, in his "Field Sports," goes a little out of the beaten track in writing on the terriers of his day, and his description must be taken as a correct one, made from the animals themselves, of which it has been said that the author kept a considerable number. "There are two sorts of terriers," said he, "the one rough, short-legged, long-backed, very strong, and most commonly of a black or yellowish colour, mixed with white; the other is smooth - haired and beautifully formed, having a shorter body and more sprightly appearance, is generally of a reddish-brown colour, or black with tanned legs. Both these sorts are the determined foe of all the vermin kind, and in their encounters with the badger very frequently meet with severe treatment, which they sustain with great courage, and a thoroughbred, well-trained terrier, often proves more than a match for his opponent."

Perhaps, as a matter of completeness, before dealing, as it were, collectively with the authorities, and the various sporting publications which saw the light during the first fifteen years of the present century, attention may specially be given

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to the Cynographia Britannica," written by Sydenham Edwards, and published in 1800. describes our terriers more fully than previous writers, but much in the same strain. His note about the so-called "Tumbler" is specially interesting and valuable.

After giving us the origin of the name of the dog, Edwards proceeds to say, "That from the evidence of Ossian's poems, the terrier appears to have been an original native of this island. Linnæus says it was introduced upon the continent so late as the reign of Frederick I. (this would be towards the end of the seventeenth century). It is doubtless the Vertagris or Tumbler of Raii and others. Raii says it used stratagem in taking its prey, some say tumbling and playing until it came near enough to seize. This supposed quality, so natural to the cat race, when applied to the dog I consider a mere fable; but it has led to a strange error-later writers having, from Raii's description, concluded a dog of valuable and extraordinary properties was entirely lost.

"The most distinct varieties are the crookedlegged and straight-legged; their colours generally black, with tanned legs and muzzles, a spot of the same colour over each eye; though they are sometimes reddish fallow or white and pied. The white

kind have been in request of late years. The ears are short, some erect, others pendulous; these and part of the tail are usually cut off; some rough and some smooth-haired. Many sportsmen prefer the wire-haired, supposing them to be the harder biters, but this is not always the case.

The terrier is querulous, fretful, and irascible, high spirited and alert when brought into action; if he has not unsubdued perseverance like the bulldog, he has rapidity of attack, managed with art and sustained with spirit; it is not what he will bear, but what he will inflict. His action protects himself, and his bite carries death to his opponents; he dashes into the hole of the fox, drives him from his recesses, or tears him to pieces in his stronghold; and he forces the reluctant, stubborn badger into light. As his courage is great, so is his genius extensive; he will trace with the foxhounds, hunt with the beagle, find for the greyhound, or beat with the spaniel. Of wild cats, martens, polecats, weasels, and rats, he is the vigilant and determined enemy; he drives the otter from the rocky clefts on the banks of the rivers, nor declines the combat in a new element."

As he was known then and a couple of centuries earlier, the reader must not expect to find shapely, handsomely marked animals like the varieties of

the present day. Possibly any little dog that "Caius, the profound clerk and ravenous devourer of learning," had running at his heels was black or brown coloured, long-bodied, on short legs, the latter may be more or less crooked; and, if he were produced by a cross between "the mongrel mastiff and the beagle," his weight might be nearer 40lb. than 15lb., the latter no doubt the most useful size for underground purposes.

Some old pictures of terriers dating back 300 years illustrate cross-bred looking creatures, some of them bearing more or less the distinctive characteristic of the turnspit. Others show a considerable trace of hound blood, but not one, so far as the writer has come across, is hound marked, or bears any more white than is usually found on the chest or feet of any dog.

The Earl of Monteith over 200 years ago had an excellent strain of terriers, good at vermin of all kinds, but especially useful as fox killers. It has been said that James I. possessed some of these little dogs. That this sometimes called most unkingly of monarchs" kept hounds is a matter of history, but whether he worked the terriers to assist. them we are not told. Long before James's time, dogs had been found useful in conjunction with nets for the purpose of catching foxes, also to kill

them as vermin. The wardrobe accounts of Edward I. show the following entries: "Anno 1299 and 1300. Paid to William de Foxhunte, the King's huntsman of foxes in divers forests and parks for his own wages, and the wages of his two boys to take care of the dogs, £9 3s."

"Paid to the same for the keep of twelve dogs belonging to the King," &c. "Paid to the same for the expense of a horse to carry the nets."

However, perhaps more to the purpose than this extract is the copy of an old engraving which lies before me at the present time, entitled "James I. Hawking." Fawning at the feet of the monarch are four dogs, evidently terriers, though some persons might consider them beagles. They are certainly terrier-shaped in heads and sterns, though the dog most distinctly shown is hound marked, and possesses larger ears than the others. One in the corner, evidently almost or quite white, possesses what at the present time would be called a "well-shaped, terrier-like head," and, although one ear is carried rather wide from the skull, the other drops nicely.

With the commencement of the present century and towards the close of the last one, more was written about terriers, and, as useful little dogs, they were gradually becoming appreciated. Beckford

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