or sporting dogs. But why go on? Seven years ago Mr. Rawdon Lee estimated that there were some 9000 show-pedigree fox terriers bred every year in the United Kingdom. I am not going to attempt to estimate the number bred now; but those old figures are they not the best recommendation of all?

And yet I have one recommendation left which I do not think has been often mentioned by books on the dog. The fox terrier is the best canine pet for India and the tropics. Of this Captain Wilkie reminds me in one of two anecdotes he gives, both bearing testimony to the cleverness of the little dog, and for both of which I must find room.

I once possessed a bitch of the Hunton strain (he writes), who, besides being a perfect rat killer and ideal mother, showed an unusual cunning. She discovered how to open kennel gates that fastened with a dropping latch. It was impossible to confine her in any kennel unless it were locked. She would never open a gate if she knew she was being watched, but the moment she thought she was unobserved she would raise the latch with her nose, drawing back the gate with her foot at the same time. Her next manœuvre was to learn to open kennel-gates from the outside, pressing the end of the latch down with one foot, and pushing at the barrier with her nose. Thus she could not only get in and out at will, but let the other dogs out. Our first countermove was a piece of twisted wire to fasten the latch, but she diagnosed it, untwisted it, and freed herself, and there was nothing left but to use a padlock. Our other dogs soon came to know of her accomplishment, and would run to the old bitch, and then back to the gate, until she understood, and opened their gates for them. I have seen her do this many times. At last the eggs began to disappear from the larder, and could not be accounted for, until one day I saw the bitch open her kennel gate directly she saw the cook leave the larder door open, run into the larder, and return with an egg in her mouth, back to her enclosure, there to drop it on the ground to break it, and then assimilate it, shell and all! Although she was so cunning it was quite impossible to teach her any tricks.

Another fox terrier bitch of mine in India whelped in the hottest

season.

We tried to find her a cool place, but everywhere was very hot, and she was not satisfied, and very restless. When the puppies were about two weeks old she was suddenly struck with a happy thought. Running to the foot of a big shady tree, she began to dig for all she was worth under one of its large roots, until she had made a sloping hole about two feet deep. She then carried her puppies there one by one, and reaped the reward of her intelligence and contrivance by being domiciled in the coolest spot in the compound. And here I am tempted to obtrude my own experience of fox terriers in India, or at least of one, by way of showing how the little chap adapts himself to jungle life. Whilst living in the Himalayas I came to be the possessor of a pedigree dog, born from imported parents. It acquires the name of V.C. from a singularly plucky fight it sustained with another dog about twice its weight. The district swarmed

with jackals, and I used to hunt them with a couple of greyhounds and a Rampur hound. Riding was out of the question, the country being more precipices. than anything else, save in a broken valley, dissected by innumerable ridges, where you kept losing sight of the dogs and catching glimpses of them again as you breasted each successive ridge. The greyhounds used to take up a position on the summits of these ridges, and speer round for a jackal, and if they saw it, it was all right. V.C. didn't quite know what to make of this form of sport when he first joined the pack. To see the greyhounds suddenly whang off, without rhyme or reason, leaving him miles behind, seemed to him a silly sort of game till he experienced the joys of assisting in the kill of his first jackal. And then he grasped the whole subject, and the next time I took him out he got on the line of a jackal, and carried it like a hound, whilst the greyhounds and Rampur looked on perfectly nonplussed by this to them, new method of hunting. But, as it happened,

V.C. roused his jackal, and so gave ocular demonstration of his system of sport. If ever there was a dog that learnt his duties purely by the light of nature, it was V.C. Thereafter it was a competition between him and the greyhounds whether they should spy or he scent the line of a jackal first. If they got the first show, away they went, with poor little V.C. pelting sixteen annas after them, and cursing them for going so fast; but if he got on the scent first, away he would go, head down and tail gay, and giving tongue with the pride begotten of his olfactory ability. It was the most comical thing to see the greyhounds, who soon came to recognise the infallibility of his method of getting at the jacks, cursing him now for going too slowly to suit their long legs, and I have seen old Chris butt V.C. in the rump to make him stir his stumps. And when he carried them to a view, devilish little camaraderie had they left for V.C. Like an arrow from a bow they would shoot ahead, and leave him standing. But he always got in for the kill, and they never failed to leave him a quivering hind leg to worry, though they declined to trust him with such an important point of attack as the throat. When all was over, little V.C. had a habit of rolling himself in the blood of the defunct jackal, and then erecting his tail very cockily, and trotting off with side glances which desired every one to take notice of his proofs of having been in at the kill. He was the dearest and jolliest little dog I ever had in India, and must have put the hounds on some scores of jackals in his time. I only saw him once defeated in the chase, and that was when he got hold of an iguana, or similar lizard. The brute had a tail as tough as a blacksmith's anvil, and V.C. wasted an afternoon and evening in abortive attempts to haul

LOIN. Should be powerful, and very slightly arched. The fore ribs should be moderately arched, the back ribs deep, and the dog should be well ribbed up.

HINDQUARTERS.-Should be strong and muscular, quite free from droop or crouch; the thighs long and powerful; hocks near the ground, the dogs standing well up on them like a foxhound, and not straight in the stifle.

STERN. Should be set on rather high and carried gaily, but not over the back or curled. It should be of good strength, anything approaching a "pipe-stopper" tail being especially objectionable.

LEGS.-Viewed in any direction must be straight, showing little or no appearance of an ankle in front. They should be strong in bone throughout, short, and straight to pastern. Both fore and hind legs should be carried straight forward in travelling, the stifles not turned outwards. The elbows should hang perpendicularly to the body, working free of the side.

FEET.-Should be round and compact, and not large. The soles hard and tough. The toes moderately arched, and turned neither in nor out. COAT. Should be straight, flat, smooth, hard, dense, and abundant. The belly and under side of the thighs should not be bare.

COLOUR.-White should predominate; brindle, red, or liver markings are objectionable. Otherwise this point is of little importance.

SYMMETRY, SIZE, AND CHARACTER.-The dog must present a general gay, lively, and attractive appearance; bone and strength in a small compass are essentials, but this must not be taken to mean that a fox terrier should be cloggy, or in any way coarse. Speed and endurance must be looked to as well as power, and the symmetry of the foxhound taken as a model. The terrier, like the hound, must on no account be leggy, nor must he be short in the leg. He should stand like a cleverly-made hunter, covering a lot of ground, yet with a short back, as before stated. He will then attain the greatest degree of propelling power, together with the greatest length of stride that is compatible with the length of his body. Weight is not a certain criterion of a terrier's fitness for his work; general shape, size, and contour are the main points. And if a dog can gallop and stay, and follow his fox up a drain it matters little what his weight is to a pound or so. Though, roughly speaking, it may be said he should not scale over 20 lbs. in show condition.