The Otter Hound. 109 



or two to gallop after foxhounds. Forty or fifty 

 years ago otter hunting appeared to be on the wane. 

 Perhaps the rising generation of sportsmen of that 

 era became discontented with the nets and spears 

 that were commonly used to facilitate the kill. Now 

 these cruel appliances are all abolished, and the only 

 resting-place fit to contain them is the lumber room 

 or the museum of some country town. Hounds are 

 so bred that they can, with a minimum amount 

 of assistance, kill their otter unaided, and specially 

 excel in their work during the early part of the hunt, 

 if they are but let alone. 



Throw off on the river's brink, and hounds will 

 soon hit the line of an otter, if one has been about 

 any time within three or four hours before, or 

 may be they will speak to scent even older than 

 that. The olfactory organs possessed by the otter 

 hound have to me always seemed something extra- 

 ordinary. The cold, damp stones by the water's 

 edge, or a bunch or clump of grass adjoining, are 

 not the places where scent would lie well. Still 

 there is the fact ; a hound will swim off to a rock 

 in mid-stream, put his nose to the ground, sniff 

 about a little, and if the otter has been at that spot, 

 even for only half a minute, that hound will throw 

 up his head and, in a solo so sweet to the ears of a 

 hunter, let all know that he is on the line. 



