See! There escaped he flies,

Half drowned, and clambers up the slippery bank,
With ooze and blood distained. Of all the brutes,
Whether by Nature formed, or by long use,

This artful diver best can bear the want
Of vital air. Unequal is the fight
Beneath the whelming element; yet there
He lives not long, but respiration needs
At proper intervals. Again he vents;
Again the crowd attack. The spear has pierced
His neck; the crimson waves confess the wound.
Fixed is the bearded lance, unwelcome guest,
Where'er he flies; with him it sinks beneath,
With him it mounts, sure guide to every foe.
Inly he groans; nor can his tender wound

Bear the cold stream. Lo! To yon sedgy bank

He creeps disconsolate; his numerous foes

Surround him, hound and men. Pierced thro' and thro',

On pointed spears they lift him high in air,

Wriggling he hangs, and grins, and bites in vain.

Bid the loud horn in gaily warbling strains
Proclaim the felon's fate.

He dies!

He dies!

"Nimrod," the prince of sporting writers, gives us a companion picture to this in prose. "Hunting the otter," he writes, "was a sport much thought of in England, chiefly perhaps for the great value set upon fresh-water fish. The system is this: The sportsmen go on each side of the river, beating the banks and sedges with the hounds. If there be an otter near, his 'seal' (foot) is soon traced on the shore, and when found he is attacked by the sportsmen with spears, when he 'vents,'-that is, comes to the surface of the water to breathe. If he be not found by the river's side, it is conjectured he is gone to 'couch' inland, for he will occasionally go some distance from his river to feed. He is traced by the foot as the deer is; and when found, and wounded in the water, makes directly for the shore, where he maintains an obstinate defence. He bites most severely, and does not readily quit his hold; on the contrary, if he seizes a dog in the water he will dive with him to the bottom of the river,

VOL. II

L

This sport

and never yield to him while he has life. is still pursued in the few fenny and watery districts that now remain in England (1840), and has for a long time been confined principally to those parts where, from local circumstances, the other more noble and exhilarating distinctions of the chase cannot be indulged in. There were formerly three established classes of hunting in Great Britain; and although the struggle for superiority has ended in favour of that of the fox, hunting the stag or buck claims precedence of the hare, the hare of the fox, but the otter, perhaps, of all." 66 Nimrod" mentions an otter killed at Leominster in 1804, which weighed 34 lbs., and was supposed to have been eight years old, and to have killed a ton of fish annually for the last five years.

To complete the picture, here is the account of a spirited hunt that blessed the Buck's Otterhounds in September 1903. It may be incidentally mentioned that the use of the spear is now tabooed. I extract this from the Field:

On Thursday, the 10th, the meet of the Bucks Otterhounds was at Ipsley, near Redditch, to draw the river Arrow. Hounds were first of all tried up-stream, and struck a drag at once. But soon it ran out in that direction. On returning the strong osier bed above Ipsley was tried. This is very thick, and it was some minutes before a tremendous burst of music proclaimed that an otter was very near the hounds. They soon drove him into the river, and what proved to be the toughest hunt of the season began. The otter never tried to go very far up-stream, knowing that beyond the road-bridge the water was shallow, but continued to dodge the hounds up and down in the deep stretch between the mill and the road, where, also, there were plenty of tree roots to take refuge in. In spite of these advantages he was not allowed to rest for long at a time, but was hustled up and down by the hounds, who were much hindered by a large and unruly crowd. The otter, getting desperate as time went on, made several attempts to rush the floodgates, and charged right through a mob of 200 people, not one of whom dared to stop

him, into the river below. Hounds soon followed, but the banks were very high and thick, and they could not locate their otter again, and besides, they were quite tired out. Our game deserved to escape, and it is to be hoped he will live to fight again, though he was handled very roughly by two or three of the hounds, who, however, could not hold him. This hunt lasted from ten o'clock in the morning to four in the afternoon.

Descriptions like these give an indication of the hard work the otterhound is required to do. In these modern times we find many packs of hounds—to be fairly exact, a couple of dozen-engaged in the sport, which lasts from April to September, and is, of course, followed on foot. The Field devotes many columns during the season to descriptions of the doings of the various hunts, and although "Nimrod" rather sneers at it, I cannot, after the perusal of several spirited days' work, come to any conclusion but that it is a manly, and in every way worthy species of sport. The otter is more abundant than the ordinary reader would guess it to be. Mr. Hill's pack in Radnorshire killed over 700 of these fish-poachers in the twenty-one years ending 1890, accounting for sixty-two in one season. Westmoreland and Cumberland are noted for otters, and the Carlisle Hunt for killing them. Devonshire is another famous otter county, but the otterhounds used there are nearly all foxhounds. The Dumfriesshire Otter Hunt in Scotland owns one of the very purest packs in the kingdom, and the Bucks, the Buckley, and the Hawkstone have all great reputations in this form of sport. The latest pack to be established is one to hunt the streams in Kent and Sussex.

Mr. Wilson Davidson, of the Dumfriesshire Hunt, has supplied me with the following description of an otterhound, and as his pack is composed entirely of the pure variety, and specimens from it have done more

winning on the bench than any other strain, it may be accepted as an authoritative description of expert opinion as to what the hound should be like:

The head long, with powerful jaws; skull broad, but not peaked, as in the bloodhound; ears long and pendulous, set on low and lying close to the cheek, and covered with hair of a silky texture. Coat hard and crispy, with hair not too long, and an undercoat of a short, close, woolly nature. Legs must be straight, with plenty of bone; feet round and well arched; chest deep, with plenty of lung room; the hindquarters strong and powerful; the stern slightly curved, carried gaily, and nicely tapered.

I may supplement this description by adding that the dog-hound ought to stand about 25 inches at shoulder, and the bitch 23, and weigh respectively from 60 to 75 and from 50 to 65 lbs. The colours are very varied; mixed dun, tan, grey, yellow, fawn and blue, and white. The eyes should be intelligent, and the hound dignified in carriage; the build generally that of a foxhound, strong and well put together, for probably no hound is called on to sustain a greater tax on its endurance. In an old book I find it stated that the muzzle should be grizzle, and the head carry large, loose flews or dewlaps; but these points seem to have been dispensed with in the modern type. Above and beyond all an otterhound should possess a musical voice, for which the true breed is as famous as is the bloodhound.

Mr. Wilson Davidson is of opinion that the modern breed could be considerably improved if otter hunts would keep their packs pure, and stick to the old, rough-coated variety. It was only at a quite recent period that the foxhound was pressed into the sport, which, in Devonshire, it has practically come to monopolise. But each species of hound, says Mr. Davidson, should be kept for its own quarry—an opinion which such authorities as "Nimrod" and Mr. Rawdon Lee

share, whilst Mr. Beckford writes on the same point, "Hounds cannot be perfect unless used to one scent, and to one style of hunting." Mr. Davidson admires the otterhound for its perfection of build, its beautiful note, its skill in working out a cold drag, and for the unequalled sport it gives in following and killing one of the most difficult of all quarries to come at.

I am fortunate in being able to illustrate this section with a portrait of Ch. Bachelor, belonging to the Dumfriesshire Otter Hunt, by whom he was bred. Bachelor is grizzled blue and tan in colour, stands 24 inches at shoulder, and weighs 76 lbs. He is by Barrister, out of Duchess, and was born in April 1898. Mr. Wilson Davidson describes him as "a very typical hound, with great bone, perfect in feet and legs, and magnificent in head and ears. His coat is a little too open, perhaps. He has plenty of stamina and dash; drags, swims, and marks an otter equal to any other hound. He is, unfortunately, standing in an unnatural position in the photograph, which, consequently, does not do him justice." Bachelor carried off the championship at the Kennel Club's Show in 1903.