164 Otters and Otter-Hunting. 



tendency to travel up it they should be encouraged 

 to do so, since the water has carried all scent down 

 with it, and perhaps the Otter has not touched the 

 banks or herbage or stepped upon a stone for the 

 first hundred yards or more of his journey. Too 

 many Masters and huntsmen, however, seem afraid 

 to let hounds stray away from the waterside, and 

 the moment they show a tendency to do so the horn 

 is blown, whips crack, and they are rated forward — 

 while the Otter is left behind. 



Otters have been found in many strange places : 

 under house drains a long way from water ; among 

 cairns or rocks half buried in heather, with the 

 nearest burn half a mile distant ; among the under- 

 wood on the crest of a hill two hundred feet above 

 the river. Although I have not heard of one being 

 found in a tree or a haystack, I see no reason why 

 these should not be resorted to upon occasion. Fox 

 earths and badgers' dens they will use, as well as 

 rabbit burrows ; and if hounds mark at any such it 

 does not follow that it is '^ riot," or that because the 

 fox or the badger or the rabbit bolts first when the 

 terriers are put in the Otter will not follow him after 

 a brief interval. 



To study the habits of his Otter the aspiring 

 Master must live near, or pay frequent visits to, one 

 or more of his rivers, often after nightfall and 

 especially during the winter months. He need pay 



