SESSION 1892-93. 



I.— A BAY WITH THE DUMFRIESSHIRE 

 OTTER-HOUNDS. 



With a few Remarks on the Otter. 



By Mr J. T. MACK. 



(Read Nov. 25, 1892.) 



By many, including not a few sportsmen, the otter is a much 

 misunderstood and a greatly maligned animal. Old Izaak 

 Walton, for example, in his ' Complete Angler,' wrote of otters 

 as " base or villanous vermin," because of the quantity of fish 

 which they destroyed. He even recommended that keepers 

 of otter-hounds should receive bounties from the Crown, to 

 encourage them to exterminate otters altogether, owing to the 

 evil reputation they possessed as destroyers of fish. Indeed 

 this common belief regarding their relentless warfare upon 

 valuable fish has wellnigh led to their total extermination. 

 At one time otters were to be met with in almost every loch 

 and river in the country, but, in consequence of their evil 

 reputation, and of the value of their fur, as well as their pro- 

 vocativeness as beasts of chase, they have been generally 

 killed down. Only in the northern counties of England and 

 the southern districts of Scotland are they now found in any- 

 thing like large numbers. 



Around the coasts of Scotland, notably in the Orkney and 

 Shetland islands, otters are met with occasionally of a larger 



