OTTER-HUNTING 249 



anything more beautiful. About the water meadows there are 

 several streams, or rather one stream divided into several ; one 

 of these, a very swift but shallow one, ran by the side of a bank, 

 on which was a "plashed" and double-laid blackthorn hedge, 

 and up this stream the otter took her course, with scarce water 

 enough at times to hide her. When the water shoaled too 

 much she crept into the hedge, in which alone the terriers could 

 follow her, and then it was perfect to see the hounds splashing 

 up the water as, gazing into the hedge, they endeavoured to 

 head and nick in upon the otter. When the hounds dashed on 

 to the top of the blackthorns down the otter went again into 

 the stream, and so on till other streams and deeper water were 

 for a time regained. The chase with this old otter, hard at it, 

 lasted an hour and three-quarters, in as hot and sunny a day in 

 summer as needs be ; and when the pack fairly hunted her down, 

 forced her out of the water, and caught and killed her in a thick 

 hedge, I was nearly run to a stand-still. Stretched on my back, 

 the hounds having worried the otter, I was longing for some- 

 thing to drink, when my host of the night uncorked a bottle of 

 porter "up" to the fullest extent, and fired a stream of hot 

 froth into my parched throat. I thought I never should have 

 recovered the use of my throat more ; however, by a liberal 

 donation from the cool trout stream, matters were set all right, 

 and a warm bath, on my return to the house, enabled me to do 

 ample justice to my friend's most hospitable fare. I viewed the 

 second young otter just before killing the old one ; but as we, 

 the hounds and myself, were tired, I left him for a future day. 

 I once found a bitch otter on the Efford stream in the act of 

 making a couch for her young. Old Palestine, from the Grafton 

 kennel, found and disturbed her in the midst of it. At her we 

 went for seven hours and a quarter, with constant views ; and, 

 during that time, on a stump overhanging the river, she mis- 

 carried, and gave birth to two cubs, born a few days only before 

 their time. A hound found them, and, when I took one in my 

 hand, it was scarcely cold. She beat us from want of light, and 

 well she deserved to escape. The work that myself and my 



