rrier is quite a new introduction that
a dozen or so years ago was seldom seen outside the Principality;
and so recently as 1881 the Airedale was merely a local dog known
in Yorkshire as the Waterside or the Bingley Terrier. Yet the breeds
just mentioned are all of unimpeachable ancestry, and the circumstance
that they were formerly bred within limited neighbourhoods is in
itself an argument in favour of their purity. We have seen the process
of a sudden leap into recognition enacted during the past few years
in connection with the white terrier of the Western Highlands--a dog
which was familiarly known in Argyllshire centuries ago, yet which
has only lately emerged from the heathery hillsides around Poltalloch
to become an attraction on the benches at the Crystal Palace and on
the lawns of the Botanical Gardens; and the example suggests the
possibility that in another decade or so the neglected Sealyham
Terrier, the ignored terrier of the Borders, and the almost forgotten
Jack Russell strain, may have claimed a due recompense for their long
neglect.

There are lovers of the hard-bitten working "earth dogs" who still
keep these strains inviolate, and who greatly prefer them to the
better-known terriers whose natural activities have been too often
atrophied by a system of artificial breeding to show points. Few of
these old unregistered breeds would attract the eye of the fancier
accustomed to judge a dog parading before him in the show ring. To
know their value and to appreciate their sterling good qualities,
one needs to watch them at work on badger or when they hit upon the
line of an otter. It is then that they display the alertness and the
dare-devil courage which have won for the English terriers their name
and fame.

An excellent working terrier was the white, rough-haired strain kept
by the Rev. John Russell in Devonshire and distributed among
privileged sportsmen about Somersetshire and Gloucestershire. The
working attributes of these energetic terriers have long been
understood, and the smart, plucky little dogs have been constantly
coveted by breeders all over the country, but they have never won
the popularity they deserve.

Those who have kept both varieties prefer the Russell to the Sealyham
Terrier, which is nevertheless an excellent worker. It is on record
that one of these, a bitch of only 9 lb. weight, fought and killed,
single-handed, a full-grown dog-fox. The Sealyham derives its breed
name from