OTTEK-HUNTING 



Ardent otter-hunters will hold this to be evidence in favour 

 of duck-hunting, a sport now forgotten. 



That there was ' brave hunting this water dog ' in Devon 

 two hundred and fifty years ago, we have on Izaak Walton's 

 authority. Devonshire may claim the honour of possessing 

 the oldest pack of otter-hounds now in existence. Mr. Pode 

 of Slade established in 1825 what is now the Dartmoor pack. 

 The Culmstock was started in 1837 by Mr. W. P. Collier. 

 There were otter-hounds in Cumberland as far back as 1830, 

 when the Rev. Hylton Wyburgh took the mastership of the 

 pack now known as the West Cumberland. 



Otter-hvmters began to discard the spear eighty years ago : 

 it had been laid aside by Mr. Bulteel and his followers in 

 Devonshire in 1839, in obedience to the feeling that it was not 

 sportsmanlike. By degrees other hunts adopted the same 

 view : in some cases the followers of a pack renounced their 

 spears and left these weapons to the Master and Huntsman, 

 who reserved use of them until hounds held the otter, when he 

 was killed to prevent unnecessary injury to the pack — for the 

 otter's teeth are strong and his bite may disable. 



Mr. Grantley Berkeley enjoyed some otter-hunting in the 

 New Forest during the 'fifties and 'sixties : this is his account 

 of a run which ended in a fair kill : — 



' The next morning Mr. Radcliffe informed me that his 

 man had tracked three otters, side by side, over some mud, 

 going up stream in the direction of my draw of the day, assert- 

 ing that no seal of the otter had been there impressed before. 

 I thought this news too good : one otter would have done ; 

 but my host declared he could trust to the truth of the report, 

 and we sallied forth in joyful expectation. I was drawing a 

 sort of back-water adjoining a cover, and, observing both 

 hounds and terriers were busy, I gave the word " to look out, 

 for we were about to find." I had sent on my groom, Thomas 

 Newman, to a shallow some distance off to watch it, when, 

 having hardly said that we were about to find, I heard the 

 most extraordinary noise proceeding from my groom and his 



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