" SPOT" 

 ("Who said rats?") 



CHAPTER XXVI 



OTTER HUNTING EXTRAORDINARY 



OTTER hunting is a branch of sport not in very strong favour 

 in Broadland, probably because of the inconvenient nature of 

 the ground rather than the scarcity of the quarry. Through- 

 out the whole district otters are plentiful more so, perhaps, 

 than in any other part of England but in their home in the 

 vast expanse of reed, rush and swamp they defy both hounds 

 and hunters, and can only be taken in traps, or shot in the twi- 

 light of early morn or eve. 



In parts of East Anglia where landsprings run from the 

 uplands to the marshland, or where trout streams wind from 

 one lake to another, otters are taken unawares, and if the 

 services of a pack of hounds can be secured a good hunt may 

 be organised. Occasionally a pack visits certain districts 

 where hunting is possible, but the sport obtained is not so 

 good as that shown in more suitable otter-hunting districts. 



During the winter, when King Frost has covered every- 

 thing with his white mantle, and made the water, mere and 

 swamp accessible to all, otter hunts can be successfully carried 

 out, although the sport in most cases is reduced to slaughter, 

 and the fun and merriment which usually marks an otter 

 hunt in one's memory is replaced by a seriousness hardly ap- 

 propriate to such an event. 



Or at times a scratch pack of dogs (they cannot be called 

 hounds) is collected, and a hunt organised in a district that is 



354 



