THE OTTERHOUND. 



153 



than probable that the rough-coated terrier the river, and fish down and back. He is 

 is identical with the now recognised Otter- then more accessible, and it is under such 



hound as an offshoot of the Southern Hound ; 

 but be that as it may, there has been a 



conditions that the best sport is obtained. 

 But still these animals are wrapt in won- 



special breed of Otterhound for the last drous mystery. The Rev. C. Davies, who 

 eighty years, very carefully bred and gradu- wrote in The New Sporting Magazine under 

 ally much improved in point of appear- the nomme de guerre of " Gelert," in giving 

 ance. They are beautiful hounds to-day, his experience of South Devon otter-hunt- 

 with heads as typical as those of Blood- ing early in the 'forties, relates that he 

 hounds, legs and feet 

 that would do for Fox- 

 hounds, a unique coat 

 of their own, and they 

 are exactly suitable for 

 hunting the otter, as 

 everyone knows who 

 has had the enjoyment 

 of a day's sport on 

 river or brook. 



The very existence of 

 the otter is a mystery. 

 He seldom allows him- 

 self to be seen. There 

 is a cunning about the 

 animal that induces 

 him to live far away 

 from the haunts of 

 man, and to occupy 

 two totally different 

 points of vantage, as 

 it were, in as many 

 hours. He may live in 

 a burrow on a cliff 



by the sea, and his fishing exploits may quite astonished old resident farmers when 

 extend seven or eight miles up a river, he first commenced hunting near their 

 generally in the hours nearest midnight, homesteads. They asked him what he 

 A stream in South Devon defied whole was doing. He replied that he was " otter- 

 generations of otter hunters, or perhaps, hunting," and they laughed, and told 

 more properly speaking, the otters did. No him they had never heard of such an 

 matter how early in the morning the hunt animal ; and yet he must have killed over 

 was started, there would be a hot trail up fifty in the next five years within a mile of 

 stream, hounds throwing their tongues them, and of course otters had always 

 and dashing from bank to bank, through been there. It was the reverend gentle- 

 pools, over clitters of rocks, and often man's surmise, therefore, that the otter in- 

 landing on meadow-side ; but there would habits nearly every river in Great Britain, 

 be no otter, and then the hunt would turn but that there is no knowing his where- 

 and hounds would revel on a burning scent abouts until he is regularly hunted . 

 down stream, the quarry meanwhile sleep- There are different opinions on the sub- 

 ing in his sea-girt holt perfectly safe from ject as to how the otter should be hunted, 

 any interference. Then, again, the otter and the kind of hound best suited for 

 may live on the moorside at the head of the sport. Mr. Davies leant towards the 



THE SOUTHERN HOUND (1803). 



From " The Sportsman's Cabinet." By P. Reinagle, R.A. 



