. The new book of the dog; a comprehensive natural history of British dogs and their foreign relatives, with chapters on law, breeding, kennel management, and veterinary treatment. Dogs. THE WEST HIGHLAND WHITE TERRIER. 391 the rocks under and between which his quarry harbours, makes use of the small dog which will go under ground, to which the French name terrier has been attached. Towards the end of the reign of James the First of England and Sixth of Scotland, we find him writing to Edinburgh to have half a dozen " earth dogges or terrieres " sent carefully to France as a present,
. The new book of the dog; a comprehensive natural history of British dogs and their foreign relatives, with chapters on law, breeding, kennel management, and veterinary treatment. Dogs. THE WEST HIGHLAND WHITE TERRIER. 391 the rocks under and between which his quarry harbours, makes use of the small dog which will go under ground, to which the French name terrier has been attached. Towards the end of the reign of James the First of England and Sixth of Scotland, we find him writing to Edinburgh to have half a dozen " earth dogges or terrieres " sent carefully to France as a present, and he directs that they be got from Argyll, and sent over in two or more ships lest they should get harm by the way. That was roughly three hundred years ago, and the King most probably would not have so highly valued a newly invented strain as he evidently did value the " terrieres " from Argyll. We may take It then, I thmk, that in 1600 the Argyllshire terriers were considered to be the best in Scot- land, and likelv enougli too, seeing the almost boundless opportunities the county gi\'es fiir the work of tlie " earth ; But men kept their dogs in the e\'il prc-show days for work and not for points, and miglity indifferent were they whether an car cocked up or lay flat to tlie cheek, whether the tail was exactly of fancy length, or how high to a hair's breadtli it stood. These things are sine qua 11011 on the modern show bench, but were not tliouglit of m the cruel, hard fighting days of old. In those days two things—and two things only—were imperatively necessary : pluck and capacity to get at the quarry. This entailed that the body in which the pluck was enshrined must be small and most active, to get at the innermost re- cesses of the lair, and that the body must be protected by the best possible teeth and jaws for fighting, on a strong and rather long neck and directed by a most capable brain. It is held that feet turned out a little are be
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