130 CATALOGUE OF THE MAMMALIA OF 
A contributor to the “ Field,” under the signature of “‘ Plunger,” 
has recently given an interesting account of the habits of this 
animal and his experience in hunting with the Wooler pack, from 
which we make the following extracts :— 
He tells us that “the scene of his apprenticeship was at 
Wooler, Northumberland, and the hunting grounds, or more 
properly speaking, waters, were the Till, the Glen, the Bow- 
mont, the Aln, and Breamish in Northumberland; and the 
Tweed, Whiteadder, Blackadder, and Eye in Berwickshire; a 
beautitul cast of waters for the sport, as in most of them otters 
abounded, especially in the Till, where they were very numerous; 
often as many as half a dozen lying on different portions of the 
river at the same time. It was, besides, an excellent school in 
which to teach a pack its duty, being a most difficult river to 
hunt, unless the hounds are thoroughly up to their work, and 
even then the chances are very largely in favour of the otter, as 
its deep opaque waters are for the most part bounded on each 
bank with matted fringes of willows and alders, or, in such parts 
as are destitute of these, by huge masses of dead thorns, which 
are put in as weirs to save the banks. These dense impenetrable 
masses, though affording excellent harbour for otters, are, never- 
theless, unmitigated nuisances to the hunter, as it is almost 
impossible to bolt an otter from them, or to finish with a kill 
in their vicinity. 
“The technical terms used in otter-hunting are as follows, viz., 
his hole or earth is called his couch or hold; his foot-prints, his 
seal or print; his excrement, spraints or swage; the small bubbles 
of air which he emits to the surface while diving across the 
bottom of the water, his chain. When he rises to the surface 
to breathe he is said to give vent; when he leaves his hole he is 
said to bolt; when he remains for some time to regain his wind 
or elude his pursuers under an overhanging bush or bank during 
the chase he is said to hang; the scent left on his track over the 
land is called his drag; when a sportsman follows his footprints 
he is said to be tracking him; when viewed he is saluted with a 
‘tally ho, the same as the fox, and when killed he is duly 
honoured by as lusty a ‘whoo whoop’ as the lungs of the party, 
