158 Otters and Otter-Hunting. 



going ; confidence in her ability to outwit or outpace 

 her disturbers and to reach some spot where she 

 will no longer be disturbed keeps her moving, and 

 renders hunting possible. If this were not so, and 

 deer, fox, hare, and Otter recognised — what is not 

 in the least true — that they had no chance of escape 

 when pursued by men and dogs, they would not 

 budge an inch, any more than the live rabbit placed 

 in a glass case with a boa -constrictor moves a hair's 

 breadth, because he cannot escape and recognises it. 

 It would be the same with a human being. The 

 pinioned criminal makes no effort to escape from the 

 executioner on the scaffold because he knows death 

 to be inevitable ; but if you released his limbs and 

 gave him a fair sporting chance of escape he would 

 promptly avail himself of it. 



In the case of a beast that fights to a finish like 

 the Otter — and, to a certain degree, the fox — there 

 can again be no cruelty. A wild animal can be 

 sensible of nothing but physical pain, and cannot 

 suffer that while fighting, any more than a soldier 

 feels his wounds in the heat of a hand-to-hand con- 

 flict, or the terrier who tackles an Otter in a holt 

 for over half an hour, during the first ten seconds 

 of which he may have had his lower jaw torn away, 

 notices the pain until the contest is over. With 

 domesticated animals trained by man this is not so 

 thoroughly the case; and the dog who is his master's 



