108 OTTER HUNTING, FALCONRY, SHOOTING 



spot. Girdled round with gnarled pollard oaks and 

 gigantic silver poplars, it is a natural reserve for many 

 kind of birds, and, excepting when the hounds come, it lies 

 almost unvisited throughout the year. There is not a 

 heronry here, but the place is constantly haunted by 

 herons, and even now a pair of these magnificent birds, 

 startled by the noise of the hunting, rise heavily and sail 

 away. Here water-rails nest every year, and when you 

 come down quietly in the evening you may hear their 

 piping in the grasses, and perhaps catch sight of them 

 running along the little tracks which they and the water- 

 hens keep open, and looking as they run more like 

 some small mammal than a bird. The paired redshanks 

 also, who run along the cattle-rails, or fly calling incessantly 

 in their resentment of intrusion, do much to give a sense 

 of wildness to the scene. 



But now the otter is away, bolted from his 

 hiding-place by the stamp of many feet. He is into 

 the river like a flash, and the water is broken into 

 waves and circles by the first rush of the hounds. 



Is he up or down ? Down it is a watcher at the 

 shallow below tallies him as he glides over the stones 

 in a foot of water, with no more disturbance than is 

 made by a fish. 



It is indeed a beautiful sight to see the hounds. 

 Now an old hound gives tongue as he swims, taking 

 the scent ofF the top of the water from the bubbles that 

 come up from the otter's coat. That is Woodman, an old 



