276 AN ANGLER'S RAMBLES 



likely furnished to them in connexion with the drains and bank 

 shelter of Springwood Park, which made it unnecessary to dis- 

 turb the royal fish. Besides these opportunities of estimating 

 the numerical strength of the otter tribe on this portion of our 

 Border rivers, others have presented themselves still more con- 

 firmatory as evidence on this subject. 



The late Duke of Atholl several years ago- visited Kelso with 

 his celebrated otter pack, and was very successful in obtaining 

 sport. Two of the swims made are still talked over, being of 

 unusual duration and interest. In one of them the otter was 

 vented at Rutherford, six or seven miles above Kelso, and killed 

 close to the town ; in the other the dislodgement was effected 

 near Kirkbank, on the Teviot, and the finale, of which I was an 

 eye-witness, took place below Roxburgh Castle ; the length of 

 water gone over in the course of the hunt being about the same 

 ill either case. In 1864 a friend of mine brought over from 

 Dumfriesshire a small scratch pack, with which, on two succes- 

 sive occasions, we tested the lower portion of Teviot, and the 

 Kale, one of its feeders. On the former, and a smaller feeder, 

 the Oxnam, we had, on the first occasion, two splashing runs, 

 but failed to kill ; the scent, owing to the lateness of our start, 

 getting cold. Next day, on the Kale, we fell in, shortly after 

 the dogs were put on, with a barren female, which tested pretty 

 severely for a time the powers of the hounds, but was at length, 

 after a noble resistance, mastered, and I have her stuffed in good 

 style by the huntsman's brother, an adept at the business, within 

 my domicile. We had another exciting hunt on the same stream 

 immediately afterwards, but owing to the wooded nature of the 

 banks, or the drains pervading them, failed in bringing it to the 

 desirable crisis. The dogs and huntsman engaged, I may 

 mention, are the same which stand depicted by Samuel Bough 

 in a landscape taken by him near Canobie, and shown at Edin- 

 burgh in the Royal Academy's Exhibition of 1865. 



