' or show
sense. Still, it should be long enough to hang as a thatch over the
soft, woolly real coat of the animal and keep it dry so that a good
shake or two will throw off most of the water; while the under coat
should be so thick and naturally oily that the dog can swim through a
fair-sized river and not get wet, or be able to sit out through a
drenching rain guarding something of his master's and be none the
worse. This under coat I, at least, have never seen a judge look for,
but for the working terrier it is most important. The size of the dog
is perhaps best indicated by weight. The dog should not weigh more
than 18 lb., nor the bitch more than 16 lb.

"There is among judges, I find--with all respect I say it--an undue
regard for weight and what is called strength, also for grooming,
which means brushing or plucking out all the long hair to gratify the
judge. One might as well judge of Sandow's strength, not by his
performances, but by the kind of wax he puts on his moustache!

"The West Highland Terrier of the old sort--I do not, of course, speak
of bench dogs--earned their living following fox, badger, or otter
wherever these went underground, between, over, or under rocks that no
man could get at to move, and some of such size that a hundred men
could not move them. (And oh! the beauty of their note when they came
across the right scent!) I want my readers to understand this, and not
to think of a Highland fox-cairn as if it were an English fox-earth
dug in sand; nor of badger work as if it were a question of locating
the badger and then digging him out. No; the badger makes his home
amongst rocks, the small ones perhaps two or three tons in weight, and
probably he has his 'hinner end' against one of three or four hundred
tons--no digging him out--and, moreover, the passages between the
rocks must be taken as they are; no scratching them a little wider. So
if your dog's ribs are a trifle too big he may crush one or two
through the narrow slit and then stick. He will never be able to pull
himself back--at least, until starvation has so reduced him that he
will probably be unable, if set free, to win (as we say in Scotland)
his way back to the open.

"I remember a tale of one of my father's terriers who got so lost. The
keepers went daily to the cairn hoping against hope. At last one day a
pair of bright eyes were seen at the bottom of a hole. They did not
disappear when the dog's name was called. A brilliant