that the Scottish terrier, the subject of this sketch, the West Highlander, the Skye, the Dandie Dinmont, and the Cairn, would be better adapted for entering narrow earths than the fox terrier, but men of experience hold that it is not so much the length of leg which determines a dog's capacity for going to ground as his general shape, and a good fox terrier proves in a practical manner, to the refutation of logicians, that he is equal to the task.
As time goes it is but a brief period since the Scottish terrier emerged from the general ruck to take coherent shape, different from his fellows, but, if modern ideas are correct, we may gather some impression of what he was like by glancing at the Cairn terriers the next occasion that serves, for these are believed by many to be the aboriginal terrier whence the others have sprung. Whether the Dandie Dinmont so originated or not I should not like to hazard a conjecture without going further into the matter. The name, of course, only came into being after Scott had written "Guy Mannering," but the dog was there before the book, and before Mr. James Davidson of Hindlee, who is persistently credited with being the personage from whom Dinmont was drawn, although Sir Walter has told us the character was a composite one. There have been people to declare that the Dandie sprang from some Eastern dogs imported into Scotland---an idea which should not be inherently improbable, especially when we know for a certainty that the Egyptians some three thousand years ago had animals of this
