1 68 Otters and Otter-Hunting. 



be no doubt, either, that the temperature as well as 

 the purity or otherwise of the water helps and 

 hinders scent, which is never good where the stream 

 is allowed to be polluted by sewage or factory waste, 

 or by the filtering into it of artificial manures or of 

 some of the products employed to render roads 

 " dustless " in consequence of motor traffic. 



Scent also varies at different times of the day, 

 being often hot before the sun has sucked up the 

 dew, dying away as he reaches the meridian, and 

 perhaps freshening again after a thunder-storm or a 

 smart April shower has fallen and revived its traces 

 among the herbage and rushes. 



What is wanted in modern Otter-hunting is a 

 quick method of hunting, so that time — which has 

 come in these days to be so valuable that it has to 

 be saved wherever possible — may not be wasted. 

 Some huntsmen " potter " when they might be 

 moving quickly and getting forward to their Otter 

 before the best of the day is over : others rush past 

 strong holding and neglect to try up the side streams 

 when they should be making good every inch of their 

 ground. It is only the Master with some small 

 amount of imagination and who uses his brains who 

 will know when to push on and when to potter, but 

 if he has no brains and no imagination it is un- 

 doubtedly safer to potter rather than to push. A 

 huntsman should think out where his quarry will 



