290 HUNTING. 



Rally, the only hound amongst them that would touch the 

 scent. But she was a jewel, and with her pleasant tongue soon 

 won several of the others to join her on the trail. Yet not till 

 :he wild animal was actually found and killed before them 

 would the farmers believe that it was the scent of an otter the 

 hounds were so enjoying. ' There be scores of rats hereabouts, 

 but us ha' never seed no sich varmint as an otter in our 

 bottoms,' was the constant remark expressed on the veracity 

 of dear old Midnight's tongue ; a hound that never told a lie 

 in her life. One day she carried a trail through a farmer's 

 cabbage garden and into a drain under his very house, when 

 a fine dog-otter, soon killed, opened his eyes and at once 

 satisfied his doubts. 



I mention these circumstances to show how little is known 

 to men in general of the habits and even the existence of this 

 wild animal, which not only lives and thrives among us, but 

 constantly makes his bed on the dry ledges of our house drains, 

 fellow-lodgers with ourselves and sharing the shelter the same 

 building affords to both. 



Human nature, we know, is little inclined to believe what 

 it cannot see or realise ; and doubtless the otter and his habits 

 are mysteries to most men, inasmuch as he is strictly a nocturnal 

 animal, never quitting his stronghold, except by expulsion, till 

 after sunset, and then only to seek his prey and disappear again 

 with the first blush of morn. Then, at night, if intruded on by 

 man, the dark colour of his hide conceals him from view, while 

 at the same time so oil-like and gentle are his movements in 

 the water that it would require a fine ear indeed to note his 

 whereabouts. Not once that I can remember do we see the 

 otter referred to in the works of our great fabulists, from ^Esop 

 and Phsedrus down to La Fontaine and Gay ; and yet, from 

 the lion to the mouse, all the beasts known to them have their 

 characteristics described with the utmost fidelity. This surely 

 is strong, if indirect, evidence that they knew nothing of the 

 otter and his habits. But I will go farther ; our keenest 

 hunters, men who have pursued the animal with hound and 



