OTTER 41 



" Old Statistical Account " the Otter is frequently mentioned. 

 For instance, in vol. xx., p. 49, we are told they abounded at 

 Loch Mahaich, near Doune. In vol. xviii., p. 374, it is stated 

 that they " used to frequent Duddingston Loch," which they 

 have often visited since see "Proceedings" of the Royal 

 Physical Society, vol. i., p. 269, and vol. ii., p. 244, where 

 mention is made of specimens obtained or seen near Peffer 

 Mill in December 1856, Duddingston Loch about the 

 same time, and near Coltbridge in December 1860. Mr 

 Speedy assures me that not more than twenty years ago 

 they regularly frequented the policies of Duddingston 

 House. Patrick Neill, in his list of Habbie's Howe animals 

 (1808), enters the Otter with the remark, "seldom met 

 with " against it ; and we find the fact of one being killed 

 during severe weather in December 1812 at the farm-offices 

 of Ingliston, a mile and a half from the Almond, considered 

 worth recording in the " Scots Magazine " for that year 

 (p. 892). A male killed near Stow in the end of 1831, 

 and a female in November 1832, are recorded in the 

 "New Statistical Account" of the parish (p. 404). Both 

 were sent to the museum of the University of Edinburgh. 

 The animal is also mentioned in Stark's " Picture of Edin- 

 burgh " (1834) as inhabiting the Water of Leith, " but is 

 rare." On the whole, I am inclined to think that its status 

 in the district now is not much worse than it was three- 

 quarters of a century ago. 



MacGillivray, in his " British Quadrupeds," 1838, p. 180, 

 states that a pack of otter-hounds was then kept by Lord John 

 Scott, who " exercised " them on the streams of Roxburgh- 

 shire. Since the death, about nine years ago, of Mr W. Hill, 

 who resided for some time at Kilduff, in East Lothian, where 

 he kept a pack, I am not aware that otter-hunting has been 

 practised in the district, except when the Dumfriesshire 



