It would be in vain to look for the lurcher in the streets or parks of London, in any of our considerable towns, or at any of our dog shows. In some of our manufacturing towns he is kept, but out of sight; his appearance is so suggestive that the modesty and retiring disposition of his master will not allow him to parade the dog before the public gaze. The lurcher is, in fact, par excellence the poacher's dog, and those who desire to see him must look for him in the rural districts; there look out for the jobbing labourer, the man who never works but from dire necessity, a sturdily built but rather slouching fellow, whose very gait and carriage - half swagger, half lurch - proclaim the midnight prowler, and close to his heels, or crouched at his feet beneath the ale house bench, you will find the lurcher.

The dog is by no means the ugly brute he is sometimes described to be. True, they vary greatly, and the name more properly describes the peculiar duties of the dog, and his manner of performing them, than distinctiveness of type; but still the old-fashioned genuine lurcher has a well-defined character of his own which no other dog can lay claim to.

The lurcher proper is a cross between the Scotch colley and the greyhound - an average one will stand about three-fourths the height of the greyhound; more strongly built and heavier boned, yet lithe and supple withal, his whole conformation giving an impression of speed, just, as his blinking, half-closed eye, as he lies pretending to sleep, impresses one with his intelligence and cunning. His coat is rough, hard, and uneven; his ears are coarse, and altogether there is an air of, not rusticity, but vulgarity, about him. You cannot help associating dog and master, and, to be just, you will admit that there has been gross neglect or fundamental errors in the education and bringing up of both dog and man, for which they may not be altogether responsible; and, to conclude your philosophising, you may, with a sigh, regret that so much capacity for real work should be turned into a wrong channel.

If we may compare the two in morals, the dog has much the better of it. He worships his master; he is as ready to defend as to adulate; his obedience is willing, prompt, and thorough, and rendered with a silence that would command the praise of the Chelsea philosopher. No yelp, youf, or yowl from the lurcher. Steady at heel or keeping watch at the stile till the wire is in the meuse and the net across the gate; then a motion of the hand, and, without a whimper, he is round the field, driving rabbit and hare into the fatal snare.

I attribute the wonderful intelligence displayed by some lurchers I have known to their constant and most intimate association with their owners. They eat, sleep, and thieve together; and if the dog were not of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's opinion on the subject, they would, after a successful raid on the squire's preserves - like Tarn o' Shanter and Souter Johnny - "be drunk for weeks together."

Lurchers will run either by nose or sight, as suits them, but always cunning. Let them start a hare, they will probably make for the meuse and meet poor Wat; but their great game is with crouching stealthy step to pounce on him in his form.

All of them will retrieve their game. Watch that itinerant tinker and collector of sundries, trudging behind that thing on four wheels he calls a cart, drawn by a nag that should be at the knacker's; he has seen the keeper heading for the Pig and Whistle. "Hie in, Jerry! " and the lurcher that enters the spinney empty mouthed, comes out two hundred yards below, and deposits a hare at his master's feet.

As before said, these dogs vary greatly in general size and shape, and so they do in colour, but my lean ideal of a lurcher is a heavyish greyhound conformation with enough of the colley to make them look intelligent, and in colour red, brindle, or a grizzle.