90 THE COMPLETE ANGLER. [PART i. 



this trout ; l she has only left thus much of it as you see, 

 and was fishing for more ; when we came we found her just 

 at it : but we were here very early, we were here an hour 

 before sun-rise, and have given her no rest since we came ; 

 sure she will hardly escape all these dogs and men, I am 

 to have the skin if we kill her. 



Ven. Why, sir, what is the skin worth ? 



Hunt. It is worth ten shillings, to make gloves ; the gloves 

 of an otter are the best fortification for your hands that can 

 be thought on against wet weather. 



Pise. I pray, honest huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant 

 question ; do you hunt a beast or a fish ? 



Hunt. Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you ; I leave it 

 to be resolved by the college of Carthusians, who have made 

 vows never to eat flesh. But I have heard, the question hath 

 been debated among many great clerks : and they seem to 

 differ about it : yet most agree that her tail is fish. 2 And 

 if her body be fish, too, then I may say that a fish will walk 

 upon land ; for an otter does so, sometimes, five or six, or 

 ten miles in a night, 3 to. catch, for her young ones, or to glut 

 herself with fish. And I can tell you that pigeons will fly 

 forty miles for a breakfast. But, sir, I am sure the otter 

 devours much fish ; and kills and spoils much more than he 

 eats. And I can tell you, that this dog-fisher, for so the 



1 " Would ye preserve a num'rous finny race ? 

 Let your fierce dogs the rav'nous otter chase ; 

 Th' amphibious monster ranges all the shores, 

 Darts through the waves, and every haunt explores." 



GAY. 



2 Walton takes his account of the Otter from Topsell's " History of Four- 

 footed Beasts," London, 1607, who "translates from Gesner's Historia 

 Nat ur alts, 1551. The reader is not likely to adopt implicitly any of the 

 early writers as a present authority in the science of natural history, and 

 need hardly be told that no part of the otter is fish. See a good account of 

 the animal in Mrs. London's "Entertaining Naturalist." ED. 



3 An otter, when there is a scarcity of fish, will go to farm-yards far 

 inland, to feed on poultry, rabbits, sucking-pigs, &c. It may be tamed, 

 and taught to catch fish enough to sustain not only himself but a whole 

 family ; and Bewick relates an instance of a tame otter, which followed 

 his master like a dog, and obeyed the word of command. Nothing can 

 well be imagined more graceful than its movements in the water. They 

 have occasionally been found drowned in the eel-baskets^ or bucks, set in 

 the river Thames, but always during high floo'ds. ED. 



