The Master and the Deputy-Master. 95 



mined to repair the omissions of the great fabulists 

 and supply the ha'penny Press with up-to-date 

 fables as to the doings of the Otter. 



Even the soi- distant serious articles on the Otter 

 that sometimes appear are no less inaccurate and un- 

 sportsmanlike, what they lack in knowledge being 

 compensated by sheer imjagination. For instance, a 

 writer recently advised the readers of a London morn- 

 ing journal to climb into a pollard tree to windward 

 {sic) of an Otter's holt, in order to watch " papa 

 Otter ' ' catching fish and bringing them to feed his 

 children. Incidentally, he mentioned that the Otter 

 and the water-rat {sic) are '' amphibious," and 

 endowed the former with a fixed "home" like 

 '' the fox and the har', the badger and the b'ar " of 

 nursery poetry. This sort of pabulum is of no con- 

 ceivable service to natural knowledge; but it may 

 do a great deal of harm to the prospects of sport 

 by sending its dupes among the ''half educated" 

 to search the banks of rivers and streams for a sight 

 of the Otter family disporting itself at the entrance 

 of its holt. These people are not in the least likely 

 to see any Otters or even to discover a holt ; but by 

 tramping about the banks and tainting them they are 

 certain to cause any Otters on the stream to go else- 

 where, and so spoil the chances of a hunt when 

 hounds come. Such writers as the one above quoted 

 and the authors of magazine articles of the North 



