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CHAPTER XI.

THE SCOTTISH TERRIER.

FROM all I have been told, and from what I have read, I believe that this little dog is the oldest variety of the canine race indigenous to North Britain, although but a comparatively recent introduction across the border and into fashionable society, at any rate under his present name. For generations he had been a popular dog in the Highlands, where, strangely enough, he was always known as the Skye terrier, although he is so different from the long-coated, unsporting-like looking creature with which that name is now associated. Even Hugh Dalziel, in the first edition of his "British Dogs," published so recently as 1881, gives an excellent illustration of the Scotch terrier which he calls a Skye terrier.

Our little friend has, perhaps, been rather unfortunate so far as nomenclature is concerned, for, after being called a Skye terrier, he became known as the Scotch terrier, the Scots terrier, and the

Highland terrier; then others dubbed him the Cairn terrier and the Die Hard, whilst another move was made to give him the distinguishing appellation of the Aberdeen terrier. Now he has been thoroughly wound up, and, I suppose to suit those persons of teetotal proclivities who connected the word "Scotch" with the national liquor called whiskey, has developed into the "Scottish" terrier; as such he is known in the Stud Books, and is acknowledged as of that name by the leading Scotch, or Scottish, authorities on the variety. Well, he is a game, smart, perky little terrier, and I do not think that his general excellence and desirability as a companion are likely to suffer from the evolutions his name has undergone. Years ago, before dog shows were invented, any cross bred creature was called a Scotch terrier, especially if he appeared to stand rather higher on the legs than the ordinary terrier; if he were on short legs he was an otter" terrier.

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In an old "Sportsman," a three halfpenny little magazine published in 1833, there is a wood engraving, by no means a bad one, of "The Scotch terrier." This is a big, leggy, cut-eared dog with a docked tail, evidently hard in coat and very game looking; were such a dog to be shown to-day he would be most likely to take a prize in the Irish

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