FAIR PLAY FOR THE OTTER 47 



fisheries — where every fish is prized — both the otter and 

 kingfisher must be intolerable nuisances ; and, if there 

 be not a pack of otterhounds in the neighbourhood, 

 one would not think unkindly of the man who killed 

 otters on a trout stream. But it is not to owners of 

 trout fishing that we plead the cause of poor Lutra 

 vulgaris. 



Masters of otterhounds find it difiicult to kill their 

 quarry in our midland, eastern or other sluggish streams, 

 and therefore but few packs of hounds are kept where 

 such streams prevail ; but during the last few years 

 several packs have been established to hunt these waters 

 — the Bucks and Essex otterhounds, amongst others, 

 having shown exceptional sport in the deep, sluggish 

 rivers of their respective counties. Bloodless hunts are, 

 of course, not an exception, for the otter escapes more 

 often with his life in the deep than in the shallower 

 streams. The worst trouble the huntsman has to en- 

 counter in a deep, slow stream is the dense aquatic 

 growth, through which it is difficult, and indeed danger- 

 ous, for hounds to swim or dive. 



Many an enjoyable day has the writer had with that 

 good sportsman, the late Hon. Geoffrey Hill, and his 

 splendid Hawkstone hounds, on the Buckinghamshire 

 Ouse and the Oxfordshire Cherwell, both of which 

 streams are in many places very deep. 



Possibly some of my readers will remember a magnifi- 

 cent drag the Hawkstone pack showed on the Cherwell 

 during a visit of those hounds to the water in question 



