ii2 Modern Dogs. 



and furiously rushed on to their game. What a 

 row ! What a fight ! The terriers were there ; all 

 of us were there. Torn jackets and torn coats. It 

 was a wonder that during the melee our otter did 

 not escape and we ourselves be the bitten ones. 

 How it all came about none of us will know, but a 

 quarter of an hour later, three lads, a man, and 

 a fisherman, were sitting in a green meadow, where 

 wild hyacinths made the hedgerows blue and the 

 clover was imparting fragrance to the air. They 

 were sitting there with their hounds and their 

 terriers, and whilst the scratch pack rolled and dried 

 themselves amongst the earlier summer flowers, we 

 were gazing in astonishment at an otter weighing 

 25^1b. one that we had killed ourselves with the aid 

 of our two hounds and terriers. We had walked three 

 miles to perform this feat, and, need I say, that in 

 less than two years from that time that locality had 

 as good a pack of otter hounds as man need desire. 

 Our Mentor of the day was our huntsman. 



Notwithstanding this experience of my own, 

 almost all old hunters say that many years careful 

 work are required to make a pack of otter hounds. 

 Squire Lomax, of Clitheroe, some quarter of a 

 century ago, had the misfortune to lose his entire 

 pack through an attack of dumb madness. Now 

 his were perhaps the most accomplished lot of 



