The following is the standard by which Greyhounds should be judged.

* * * * *

HEAD—­Long and narrow, slightly wider in skull, allowing for plenty of brain room; lips tight, without any flew, and eyes bright and intelligent and dark in colour.  EARS—­Small and fine in texture, and semi-pricked.  TEETH—­Very strong and level, and not decayed or cankered.  NECK—­Lengthy, without any throatiness, but muscular.  SHOULDERS—­Placed well back in the body, and fairly muscular, without being loaded.  FORE-LEGS—­Perfectly straight, set well into the shoulders, with strong pasterns and toes set well up and close together.  BODY—­Chest very deep, with fairly well-sprung ribs; muscular back and loins, and well cut up in the flanks.  HIND-QUARTERS—­Wide and well let down, with hocks well bent and close to the ground, with very muscular haunches, showing great propelling power, and tail long and fine and tapering with a slight upward curve.  COAT—­Fairly fine in texture.  WEIGHT—­The ideal weight of a dog is from 60 pounds to 65 pounds, of a bitch from 55 pounds to 60 pounds.

CHAPTER XIX

THE WHIPPET

For elegance of style, cleanliness of habit, and graceful movement, few dogs can equal the Whippet, for which reason his popularity as a companion has increased very greatly within the past decade.  No more affectionate creature is to be found, yet he possesses considerable determination and pluck, and on occasion will defend himself in his own way.

Too fragile in his anatomy for fighting, in the ordinary sense of the word, when molested, he will “snap” at his opponent with such celerity as to take even the most watchful by surprise; while his strength of jaw, combined with its comparatively great length, enables him to inflict severe punishment at the first grab.  It was probably owing to this habit, which is common to all Whippets, that they were originally known as Snap-Dogs.

The Whippet existed as a separate breed long before dog shows were thought of, and at a time when records of pedigrees were not officially preserved; but it is very certain that the Greyhound had a share in his genealogical history, for not only should his appearance be precisely that of a Greyhound in miniature, but the purpose for which he was bred is very similar to that for which his larger prototype is still used, the only difference being that rabbits were coursed by Whippets, and hares by Greyhounds.

This sport has been mainly confined to the working classes, the colliers of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland being particularly devoted to it.  As a rule the contests are handicaps, the starting point of each competitor being regulated by its weight; but the winners of previous important events are penalised in addition, according to their presumed merit, by having a certain number of yards deducted from the