OTTER HUNTING EXTRAORDINARY 357 



evil-looking loafer with his still more evil-looking lurcher 

 snarling at his heels; whilst poachers (man and beast), on 

 the lookout for anything that would turn up, jostled with 

 absolute indifference against the velvet-coated keepers of the 

 neighbouring coverts. 



Some of the light-hearted members of the community sang 

 vociferously 



" We'll all go a-hunting to-day, 

 All nature looks smiling and gay," 



followed by other chorus songs which however were muchly 

 interrupted by recurring dissensions and disputes arising in 

 the yelping canine crowd which occasioned a good deal of 

 forcible language and strong application of the ash plant to 

 maintain even an armed neutrality amongst the seventy-five 

 hounds which comprised this heterogeneous pack. At length 

 a start was made working up the stream. Sometimes it 

 was necessary to cross wide and ugly ditches, and then the 

 scrimmage at the boats was most entertaining. Some suc- 

 ceeded in jumping far enough to toe the gunwale, and then, 

 to the delight of the crowd, would miss their footing and fall 

 backwards into the water in a sitting posture, sinking over 

 head and ears into slimy ooze. 



At other times, when a covert was being looked, part of 

 the hungry pack would get on the scent of a hare and make 

 such a noise that they would lead everyone to think an 

 otter had been started ; or a poaching lurcher would pounce 

 upon a squatting pheasant, and the owner of the dog would 

 try to annex it unobserved quite an impossibility under the 

 circumstances. Again, endless diversions were forthcoming 

 from rat-hunts. Not finding an otter, the hunters seemed 

 determined on sport of some kind nothing came amiss to 

 them so long as it could move. In the excitement of the 

 moment some of the ratters would hit a dog when aiming at 

 a rat, the dog would resent the injury by fastening its teeth 

 in a tender part of his assailant's anatomy, the crowd would 

 laugh, and a fight was often the outcome. 



