A MASTER OF OTTERHOUNDS 235 



give only one instance, it is usual to make a great 

 favour of allowing him to draw the rivers at all. On 

 the contrary, in Devonshire people feel aggrieved if 

 the pack does not pay their waters at least one visit 

 every season to thin out the otters. Yet, whatever 

 may be the Master's difticulties, it is a healthy sign, in 

 these days of big fields, big purses, and bag foxes, to 

 find otter-hunting the only hunting, bar that of the 

 wild stag on Exmoor, which is still free from the taint 

 of artificiality, ever gaining fresh adherents, as witness 

 the presence this season of otterhounds in at least five 

 of the home counties — Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Essex, 

 and Suffolk. 



The absence of artificiality is surely obvious. It is 

 always possible to stock a country with hares or with 

 foxes (and mange also) from Leadenhall Market, from 

 the Highlands of Scotland, or— tempora, mores ! — 

 from the country of a provincial neighbour. It is 

 possible to keep stags or hinds on hard food and 

 enlarge or uncart them before the pack, perhaps only 

 to retake the fugitive in some cowshed or pigsty. To 

 stock an otter-hunting country with otters, however, is 

 beyond any one, no matter how deep his purse or how 

 great his indifference to the interests of his neighbours. 

 He can only depend on the natural stock of otters fish- 

 ing the rivers and brooks in the locality, their numbers 

 constantly augmented from those born in the sea-cliffs 

 and working up from the estuaries. He must also 

 depend on the good-will of the owners of water, of 

 riparian owners, that is to say, of millers, farmers, 

 water-bailiffs, keepers, and fishermen. If I were asked 



