156 Otters aind Otter-Hunting. 



shallows and bridges, he will be certain to pass an 

 Otter that has floated down in the still water under 

 the opposite bank and gone to bed in some holt there 

 of which the Master knows nothing. If the river 

 is broad, hounds have no chance of winding him, and 

 when a mile or so higher up they strike his drag at 

 last, the day resolves itself into a hopeless hunting 

 of ''heel." 



Another difficulty may arise when hounds mark 

 their Otter in an inaccessible fastness, which requires, 

 in order to put him down, the destruction of some 

 forest tree or the pulling to pieces of some 

 elaborately-constructed "weiring" — in the absence 

 of some " real good " terriers, who can go wherever 

 an Otter can go, swim under water to find the en- 

 trance to his holt, and lay to him with their tongues 

 until their barking gets on his nerves, so that he 

 leaves for very peace' sake. I am bound to say, 

 though, that in my experience if an Otter takes very 

 long to shift it is, as often as not, a bitch with 

 small cubs. If it leaves and almost immediately 

 returns to the same holt this will certainly prove to 

 be the case, and unless hounds are taken away and 

 the terriers called off irremediable mischief will be 

 done. Yet how many cubs one sees killed in a 

 season because a Master does not appreciate that the 

 reason an Otter — like all other beasts of the chase — 

 ever leaves a strong holt is because he resents the dis- 



