That even a hundred years ago terriers were bred with care, and that certain strains were held in especial value, is shown by the recorded fact that a litter of seven puppies was sold for twenty-one guineas—­a good price even in these days—­and that on one occasion so high a sum as twenty guineas was paid for a full-grown dog.  At that time there was no definite and well-established breed recognised throughout the islands by a specific name; the embracing title of “Terrier” included all the varieties which have since been carefully differentiated.  But very many of the breeds existed in their respective localities awaiting national recognition.  Here and there some squire or huntsman nurtured a particular strain and developed a type which he kept pure, and at many a manor-house and farmstead in Devonshire and Cumberland, on many a Highland estate and Irish riverside where there were foxes to be hunted or otters to be killed, terriers of definite strain were religiously cherished.  Several of these still survive, and are as respectable in descent and quite as important historically as some of the favoured and fashionable champions of our time.  They do not perhaps possess the outward beauty and distinction of type which would justify their being brought into general notice, but as workers they retain all the fire and verve that are required in dogs that are expected to encounter such vicious vermin as the badger and the fox.

Some of the breeds of terriers seen nowadays in every dog show were equally obscure and unknown a few years back.  Thirty-seven years ago the now popular Irish Terrier was practically unknown in England, and the Scottish Terrier was only beginning to be recognised as a distinct breed.  The Welsh Terrier 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.