THE OTTER AND HIS WAYS 295 



often sat up like a monkey, holding the fish in his fore paws 

 and invariably eating it from head to tail. In a wild state, 

 however, the otter eats an eel only from the anal aperture 

 downwards to the tail ; whereas, like a true epicure, he prefers 

 the shoulders and upper end of the lordly salmon. 



From the extreme acuteness of my tame otter's nose I dis- 

 covered why it was that, after a stream had been drawn and its 

 hovers tainted by hounds, it was useless drawing that same 

 water in less than a month or five weeks afterwards ; for unless 

 a flood had washed away all traces of the intruders, a blank on 

 it was a dead certainty. Hence, a wide range of rivers largely 

 increases the chance of finding, as the success attending the 

 nomad system practised by some of our most famous otter 

 hunters amply demonstrates. 



That system may be briefly described as follows : Some 

 fifty years ago Mr. Lomax, a noted hunter, set the fashion of 

 travelling with his otter hounds from one county to another. 

 Hanging out at wayside inns and drawing fresh streams from 

 day to day, he showed marvellous sport, as he crossed them 

 in his course between Lancashire and the western counties. 

 The late Mr. Waldron Hill did the same, but on a somewhat 

 grander scale ; for, travelling with a van, and not content with 

 hunting over five or six counties in Scotland, he would take 

 ship and visit the Emerald Isle, the natives of which went 

 almost wild with delight at the sport he was wont to show on 

 their purling streams. Then, at the present time, we have the 

 Hon. Geoffrey Hill adopting the same plan, and killing on an 

 average at least eighteen brace of otters in a season. Nor can 

 I conceive a greater treat than to go a-gipsying with him 

 throughout the summer, now sharing the wildest of all English 

 sports in the best of company ; or, if the game be not afoot, 

 searching for it amid the most charming scenery of mountain 

 and vale, woodland and water. But more anon of his rivers, 

 hounds and sport. 



In the west also, of late, the two famous packs of Mr. 

 Cherriton and Mr. Collier have sought fresh streams, and 



