CHAPTER XIII. 



THE SCIENCE OF HUNTING THE 

 OTTER. 



It is scarcely too much to say that every '' country " 

 and almost every river requires a different system 

 of hunting if one is to be successful in showing 

 sport. The methods pursued in hunting in the mud- 

 bottomed " diks " of Sussex and the Fen Country 

 are not similar, except in the broadest outline, to 

 those required for the large rivers of the South of 

 Scotland, flowing over beds of solid rock through 

 tree-crowned gorges where the sun never penetrates. 

 Similarly it is not possible to hunt Otters in lakes, 

 meres, and salt marshes as they would be hunted 

 in the rocky mountain burns of Highland Scotland 

 or among the caves and boulders of the sea-coasts of 

 the Western Islands. 



Nevertheless, in all these places — wherever, in 

 fact, there are water, and eels, and frogs^ — Otters are 

 to be found and successfully hunted by him who will 

 take his methods out of stereotype and adapt them 

 to a novel environment. 



