OTTER HUNTING, FALCONRY, SHOOTING loi 



fox. But to otter hunting, ' the dearest joy of my heart 

 after falconry,' as he called it, ^ he was early devoted, 

 and he never swerved in his allegiance. 



In this ' most delightful sport,' as he truly wrote, 

 ' the object of pursuit has very long odds in his favour.' 

 And here, as there must needs be many to whom the 

 opportunity of seeing otter-hounds at work has been 

 denied, a few words upon this particular form of sport 

 may not be out of place, and it is for these alone that 

 they are written. 



Otters and Otter Hunting. 



The otter is said to be a ' nocturnal animal.' This 

 must not be taken to mean literally that it is never abroad 

 in the daylight, but that it seldom is. When the sun is 

 dying behind the last turn of the shoulder of the hill, 

 when the woof of whitening vapour begins to form over 

 the withies, when the cattle cough in the chilling meadow 

 lands and the peewits come dropping in silently over the 

 gateway where the hay hangs caught by the high thorn 

 hedge, then it is that the otter wakes from its sleep in the 

 reeds, or under the roots of an oak or alder, and begins 

 to move for food. 



Otters are great travellers, ranging very far up and 

 down stream on their nightly quests. They swim very 

 quietly, slipping into the water as if it were oil. Though 

 you listen never so carefully, you do not hear much that 



' Letter to the Editor. 



