CHAP. IL] THE SECOND DA Y. 59 



have given her no rest since we came ; sure she will hardly escape 

 all these dogs and men. I am to have the skin if we kill her. 



VENATOR. Why, Sir, what is the skin worth ? 



HUNTSMAN. It is worth ten shillings to make gloves; the 

 gloves of an Otter are the best fortification for your hands that 

 can be thought on against wet weather. 



PISCATOR. I pray, honest Huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant 

 question : do you hunt a beast or a fish ? 



HUNTSMAN. Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you ; .1 

 leave it to be resolved by the college of Carthusians, who have 

 made vows never to eat flesh. But, I have heard, the question 

 hath been debated among many great clerks, and they seem to 

 differ about it ; yet most agree that her tail is fish : and if her 

 body be fish too, then I may say that a fish will walk upon land : 

 for an Otter does so sometimes, five or six or ten miles in a night, 

 to catch for her young ones, or to glut herself with fish. And I 

 can tell you that Pigeons will fly forty miles for a breakfast : but, 

 Sir, I am sure the Otter devours much fish, and kills and spoils 

 much more than he eats. And I can tell you that this dog-fisher, 

 for so the Latins call him, can smell a fish in the water a hundred 

 yards from him : Gesner says much farther : and that his stones 

 are good against the falling sickness ; and that there is an herb, 

 Benione, which, being hung in a linen cloth near a fish-pond, or 

 any haunt that he uses, makes him to avoid the place ; which 

 proves he smells both by water and land. And, I can tell you, 

 there is brave hunting this water-dog in Cornwall ; * where there 

 have been so many, that our learned Camden says there is a river 

 called Ottersey, which was so named by reason of the abundance 

 of Otters that bred and fed in it. 



And thus much for my knowledge of the Otter ; which you 

 may now see above water at vent, and the dogs close with him ; 

 I now see he will not last long. Follow, therefore, my masters, 

 follow ; for Sweetlips was like to have him at this last vent. 



VENATOR. Oh me ! all the horse are got over the river, 

 what shall we do now ? shall we follow them over the water ? 



HUNTSMAN. No, Sir, no ; be not so eager ; stay a little, 

 and follow me ; for both they and the dogs will be suddenly on 

 this side again, I warrant you, and the Otter too, it may be. 

 Now have at him with Kilbuck, for he vents again. 



* In Devonshire. The River Ottersey is thus noticed in Cough's edition of Camden's 

 Britannia: " More eastward the Otterey (q.d., the Otter's river) falls into the sea, 

 passing by Honiton." Vol. i. p. 29. Though pointed cut by Mr Moses Browne, the 

 error is not noticed by subsequent editors. 





