124 TEE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



behind rocky fragments, now dives and doubles or 

 eludes all for a minute by some turn. So long as his 

 wind endures or he is not wounded he can stop in the 

 water, and so long as he is in the water he can live. 

 But by degrees he is encircled ; some wade in and cut 

 off his course ; hounds stop him one way and men the 

 other, till, finally forced to land or to the shallow, 

 he is slain. His webbed feet are cut off and given as 

 trophies to the ladies who are present. The skin 

 varies in colour — sometimes a deep brown, sometimes 

 fawn. 



The otter is far wilder than the fox ; for the fox 

 a home is found and covers are kept for him, even 

 though he makes free with the pheasants ; but the 

 otter has no home except the river and the rocky 

 fastnesses beside it. No creature could be more abso- 

 lutely wild, depending solely upon his own exertions 

 for existence. Of olden time he was believed to be 

 able to scent the fish in the water at a considerable 

 distance, as a hound scents a fox, and to go straight 

 to them. If he gets among a number he will kill 

 many more than he needs. For this reason he has 

 been driven by degrees from most of the rivers in the 

 south where he used to be found, but still exists in 

 Somerset and Devon. Not even in otter-hunting does 

 he get the same fair play as the fox. No one strikes a 

 fox or puts a net across his course. That, however, is 

 necessary, but it is time that a strong protest was made 

 against the extermination of the otter in rivers like 

 the Thames, where he is treated as a venomous cobra 

 might be on land. The truth is the otter is a most 

 interesting animal and worth preservation, even at 



