many other animals, in pursuit of which it evinces an extraordinary and untaught alacrity. Some of them will draw a badger from his hole. The other species of terrier alluded to is of a dirty white colour, except about the eyes and ears, which are brown. It stands higher before than behind; has the muzzle more truncated than the other, and beset with stiff bristles; the hair, all over, is rather long and curly, and the ears are partly erect and partly pendulous. This is, perhaps, in general more powerful than the other. It is equally courageous, and quite as fitted for the purposes from which they both take their name. It is sometimes called the Scotch terrier.

The modern fox terrier is a white dog, with certain recognised markings on the head and ears, and possibly a spot on the body; but if you could by any hankypanky colour one black and tan, it would take a very skilled and bold expert to say, "This is a fox terrier." And yet the terrier of the old days, used for bolting foxes, was nearly always a black and tan or a darkcoloured dog. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such terriers were kept, chiefly by the lower classes-grooms, stablemen, huntsmen, et hoc genus, to assist in their work, and at that period were far more commonly used in the hunting-field and for their understood duties than ever since. They were de facto "fox terriers"; they often ran with the hounds, and the longest chase found them in at the death, or, what was more to the point, present when their assistance was required to angle a fox when it had gone to ground. At the beginning of the nineteenth century they arrived at the dignity of their present nomenclature, and drew away from the ruck of their cousins. Attention was bestowed on their breeding, and you read in 1803 of their having become so exceedingly fashionable that five guineas was considered no great price to pay for a handsome and well-bred specimen-a clear indication that they were being bred to type at the time when they were given their distinctive name. Notwith

standing those dogs were, in the majority of cases, black and tan or brown.

At the same time white terriers were to be found, for we have evidence of them in one or two rare old pictures and engravings, and it is not impossible that they were a distinct strain, fostered and kept pure in select hunting stables, as we know other breeds have been. It is certain the Duke of Beaufort had such a strain, but equally certain they were black and tan in colour. But if black and tan, which was then the orthodox colour, was fostered by one sportsman, there is no reason, and, indeed, a great likelihood, that other varieties, and amongst them white, might have been fostered in other kennels. But whilst we have ocular proof that white fox-terriers did exist, Mr. Rawdon Lee-than whom there is no greater student of and authority on the breed-does not ascribe to them the complete change that crept over the complexion of the breed, and revolutionised it within the cycle of fifty years. He rather considers that "the modern fashionable dog was a later production, brought about by judicious crossing with terriers of different kinds, and not without a slight taint of beagle or hound in their blood." One could have wished that the "terriers of other kinds" were more specifically distinguished, for they, as well as the fox terrier, must have struggled forth into individuality of colour from the dark chaos of the tribe as we know it existed in the eighteenth century. Of our eighteen varieties of modern terriers, there are only three which are white in their colouring -the fox, the bull, and the white English terrier. The latter is supposed to have been derived from a cross of the two former, with a dash of the whippet; the bull terrier was often a coloured dog, sometimes black and tan. And so the mystery of the fox terrier's conversion

from black to white remains as great as ever, unless peradventure the change can be traced to the beagle or hound cross.

The vogue of the fox terrier began with dog shows, and he jumped into popularity in the 'Sixties, and has never looked back since. It was in that decade that he first attracted the fancier's attention, to whom the twentieth century dog owes it development, and who, it may be said without any disrespect, has undoubtedly improved on the work of Nature by bringing human taste, modern intelligence, singular perseverance, and an admirable devotion to bear on the task of selecting, propagating, and perfecting the fittest. And so, pace the domineering Dalziel, with his contemptuous "Pho! Fanciers never reason, they assert"; pace the folios that have been written to try and prove, metaphorically as well as literally, that black is white; pace all and every who would have us believe that the fox terrier of to-day is in direct descent from an ancient and aristocratic ancestry,—I am forced to the opinion that the most deservedly popular dog of modern times is practically a modern product, and that this cocky little chap we all love has only the same affinity to the black burden of his past as, say, the modern Bond Street beauty to the Anglo-Saxon maidens who smoothed their tousled locks and contemplated their hardy features in the mirror of the river's rim, and went a-fishing in coracles on the quiet reaches of the Thames in the Henley direction.

And so, without stopping to be tedious by repeating the too-oft-told tale of the pedigreeless Jock, Trap, and Tartar, who are the Shem, Ham, and Japhet of modern fox terrierdom, the veritable pillars on which the splendid superstructure of the developed breed rests, I will proceed to the much more interesting matter

that has been placed at my disposal by my many courteous and kind contributors.

Every one with the most superficial eye for a dog knows what a fox terrier is like, and if breathes there a reader who is not quite certain, I must refer him to the Standard of Points at the end of this article, where he shall have it described in minutest detail. But for those not in that elementary stage of dog-fancying, the following brief description of an "ideal" dog, contributed by H.G. the Duchess of Newcastle, a leading judge and breeder of the variety, affords an admirable text on which to hang the criticisms of the cognoscenti in dealing with the practical type of dog as it exists to-day :

THE DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE'S IDEAL FOX TERRIER.-A perfect fox terrier, whether he be wire or smooth, should to my mind be made like a weight-carrying polo pony. We want the game look, the blood head, neck, and shoulders, the spring of the ribs, short back, strong hindquarters, hocks in the right place, and the compact, active look in the terrier just as much as in the pony; but we also want the legs and feet of the foxhound. I cannot stand the long-legged, snipey-faced, soft-expressioned, flatsided specimens sometimes seen figuring as prize-winners. They have done the breed of show terriers a lot of harm; for the ordinary individual going round the benches of some show for the first time does not keep in his mind's eye the beautiful terriers he sees, but these monstrosities, and says, "I don't want a brute like that!" I am strongly in favour of limiting the height and not the weight; for although this would tend to thicken the shoulder, still those who are faulty in this respect would get knocked out by the judge. I know, of course, with the smaller terrier it is difficult to get the length of head, also neck and shoulder properties. Still, in many cases these are to be found, though at first sight not so apparent, owing to the shorter and cobbier appearance.

With this pen-picture in view, I will proceed to set out in full the criticisms and notes that have reached me from experts in the breed.