t were they whether an ear cocked up or
lay flat to the cheek, whether the tail was exactly of fancy length,
or how high to a hair's breadth it stood. These things are _sine qua
non_ on the modern show bench, but were not thought of in 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 recesses 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 better for
scrambling up rocks than perfectly straight Fox-terrier like feet. In
addition, it was useful to have your dog of a colour easy to see when
in motion, though no great weight was laid upon that point, as in the
days before newspapers and trains men's eyes were good, as a rule.
Still, the quantity of white in the existing terriers all through the
west coast of Scotland shows that it must have been rather a favoured
colour.

White West Highland Terriers were kept at Poltalloch sixty years ago,
and so they were first shown as Poltalloch Terriers. Yet although they
were kept in their purest strain in Argyllshire, they are still to be
found all along the west coast of Scotland, good specimens belonging
to Ross-shire, to Skye, and at Ballachulish on Loch Leven, so that it
is a breed with a long pedigree and not an invented breed of the
present day. Emphatically, they are not simply white coloured Scottish
Terriers, and it is an error to judge them on Scottish Terrier lines.
They are smaller than the average Scottie, more "foxy" in general
conformation--straight limbed, rather long, rather low, and active in
body, with a broad forehead, light muzzle and underjaw, and a bright,
small intelligent eye. Colonel Malcolm, of Poltalloch, who is
recognised as the great authority on the breed, lays stress upon the
quality of the coat. "The outer coat," he says, "should be very soft
on the forehead and get gradually harder towards the haunches, but the
harsh coat beloved of the show bench is all nonsense, and is the
easiest thing in the world to 'fake,' as anyone can try who will dip
his own hair into the now fashionable 'anturic' baths. The outer coat
should be distinctly _long_, but not long in the 'fancy