AND ANGLING SONGS. 265 



acquaintance also with the reputed haunts of the otter on Tweed 

 and its tributaries, leads to the conviction, that in the immediate 

 vicinity of those lurking-places no extraordinary or wanton 

 onslaught of river-trout is at any time in the way of being per- 

 petrated. Many of those resorts I know well, and have occa- 

 sionally, besides descrying the marks, seen otters at play close 

 to them ; but so far from discarding such localities as trouting- 

 casts, I hold them, seeing they are generally furnished with 

 under-bank shelter of the best description, in high esteem, and 

 have often met with excellent sport, especially when dibbling with 

 the natural fly and worm, at the throat of the animals' kennel. 

 The pool below Teviot Bridge, near Kelso, the Castle Pool, 

 Thorntree streams, and Upper Maisondieu, Heaton Millcauld, 

 the Turn-pool, Ninewells, and Ormiston Water, all belonging to 

 the lower portions of Teviot, share this character, and while they 

 teem with trout are well-known habitats of the lutra. 



Taking together the abundance of otters on Teviot and 

 Tweedside, and the abundance of river-trout, I am quite per- 

 suaded that the former play but a sorry part in keeping down 

 the latter. That they molest them to a certain extent, is pro- 

 bable enough. They disturb, if they do not actually molest, 

 salmon as much ; but the real slaughter committed is very 

 trifling, eels, frogs, snails, and herbs forming their chief food. 

 From fishermen in the district who have paid attention to the 

 habits of the otter, and from such of my friends as take delight 

 in otter-hunting, I can elicit nothing in their whole experience 

 corresponding to what has been affirmed by Mr. Young. Of the 

 ' hundreds' of fresh- water trout caught by a single otter in the 

 course of the season, and left intact on the rivers' banks, not one 

 ever happened to fall either under their observation or my own. 

 Our Lowland otters, it may be, are not quite so sportively in- 

 clined, nor so expert, as the Sutherlandshire ones. Possibly 

 the eel-flesh they indulge in inclines to indolent habits. I have 



