266 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



never heard of an instance, at any rate, of the nocturnal prowler 

 fetching to bank ' a dozen trout in the course of half an hour/ and, 

 when I shall be so informed, I may expect to become further 

 regaled with the relation of how these were salted and put aside 

 for winter food by their clever and considerate captor. Mr. 

 Young, in witnessing this feat on the part of the otter, has been 

 peculiarly favoured. 



It is certainly not an everyday occurrence, or a common ex- 

 hibition of the dispositions of the animal, or indeed of any animal 

 in the wild state. The weasel, with all its wicked pluck and 

 blood-thirstiness, has never been accused of such wanton slaughter 

 as Mr. Young has attributed to the otter, and magnified into a 

 good office. That teethy despoiler of our waters, the pike, is 

 quite an embodiment of clemency and moderation compared with 

 those whiskered old Thugs whom my late friend at Invershin 

 would intrust with the custodiership of our salmon-rivers. The 

 sedgy skulker, with all the vice and ferocity imputed to him, 

 never at least ' runs a-muck.' He kills to appease his appetite, 

 not out of sport or sanguinary caprice ; and although I don't like 

 him as a craft cruising piratically among our Highland lakes 

 and rivers, I must do him the justice to say that he is provident 

 and forbearing, quite a paragon, in fact, of discretion and gentle- 

 ness, compared with the otter of the North. Mr. Young, evi- 

 dently, judging from the confident manner in which he spoke of 

 its habits, shared in the belief a somewhat prevalent one that 

 the otter has been driven by force of circumstances, exemplified, 

 for instance, in the extended or extending scale of agricultural 

 improvements, beyond the pale of common regard, into the 

 secluded glens, rocky fastnesses, and undisturbed marshes of the 

 upper Highlands ; in other words, that there is no proper field 

 of observation for its instincts and habits south of the Gram- 

 pians. It may perhaps surprise the reader to be told that there 

 are more otters at the present moment in occupation, as their 



