26 Otters and Otter-Hunting. 



a fable or a moral upon them. In the mediaeval 

 Physiologus, or Bestiary, the Otter is mentioned as 

 entering the crocodile's mouth in order to kill it ; and 

 this is the sole written legend concerning the Otter 

 that I have been able to discover. 



Among serious writers, he is mentioned by Varro 

 and described by Pliny, who says that he differs 

 from a beaver in having a tail like a land-beast while 

 a beaver has one like a fish. 



Among descriptive writers on natural history, 

 Gilbert White and Richard Jefferies make brief men- 

 tion of Otters, but '' A Son of the Marshes " is 

 more expansive. Various more modern writers on 

 natural history and wild life have contributed 

 accounts of observed facts about the Otter. In 

 " Water Babies," Charles Kingsley is sound on the 

 natural habits of the bitch Otter he introduces into 

 that charming story ; while in his '^ Two Years Ago " 

 occurs the only account of an Otter-hunt in English 

 fiction ; though an Otter -hunt (in November !) is 

 mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in " Guy Manner- 

 ing " as having formed one of the sports that 

 ''consumed the time merrily" during Bertram's 

 visit to Dandie Dinmont. Izaak Walton gives, in 

 the second chapter of " The Compleat Angler," a 

 graphic account of a successful Otter-hunt, in which 

 we learn from the phrase " all the horse are got 

 over the water " that in the seventeenth century 



