156 



THE NEW BOOK OF THE DOG. 



trees where some deep back-water had col- 

 lected, looked the ideal place for an otter's 

 holt. A hollow below proved that the 

 wily one had slipped through ; but the 

 hounds forced him back to the holt, and 

 each stream was tried in turn, but his re- 

 lentless followers showed him no mercy, 

 and in three parts of an hour from the time 

 he left the holt they pulled him down, 

 a big dog otter. 



Major Hill seldom exhibited his hounds. 

 They were seen now and then at Birming- 

 ham ; but, hunting as hard as they did 

 through Shropshire, Staffordshire, Cheshire, 

 and into Wales, where they got their best 

 water, there was not much time for show- 

 ing. Their famous Master has been dead 

 now many years, but his pack is still going, 

 and shows great sport as the Hawkstone 

 under the Mastership of Mr. H. P. Wardell, 

 the kennels being at Ludlow Racecourse, 

 Bromfield. 



The leading pack in the Kingdom for 

 the last sixty years, at any rate, has been 

 the Carlisle when in the hands of Mr. J. C. 

 Carrick, who was famous both for the sport 

 he showed and for his breed of Otter- 

 hound, so well represented at all the im- 

 portant shows. Such ' hounds as Lottery, 

 first at Birmingham some years back, and 

 Lucifer were very typical specimens ; but 

 of late years the entries of Otterhounds 

 have not been very numerous at the great 

 exhibitions, and this can well be explained 

 by the fact that they are wanted in greater 

 numbers for active service, there being 

 many more packs than formerly in all, 

 twenty-one for the United Kingdom. Be- 

 sides those already mentioned, there are, 

 for instance, the Bucks, which hunt three 

 days a week from Newport Pagnell on the 

 rivers Ouse, Nene, Welland, Lovall, and 

 Gleb ; Mr. T. Wilkinson's, at Darlington ; 

 and the West Cumberland at Cockermouth. 

 In Ireland there is the Brookfield, with its 

 headquarters in County Cork ; while in 

 Wales there are the Pembroke and Carmar- 

 then, the Rug, the Ynysfor, and Mr. Buck- 

 ley's. 



The Crowhurst Otter Hunt hunts most 

 of- the rivers in Sussex with sixteen couples 



of hounds, including seven couples of pure 

 Otterhounds. The " Master " last season 

 was Mrs. Walter Cheesman. The Essex 

 have, appropriately enough, their kennels 

 at Water House Farm, Chelmsford. They 

 hunt three days a week on the rivers of 

 Essex and West Suffolk, with a pack of 

 about eight couples of pure Otterhounds and 

 a like number of Foxhounds. L. Rose, Esq., 

 is the Master, and he hunts them him- 

 self. The Culmstock, with kennels now 

 at Ilminster, is a very old hunt, established 

 and maintained for over fifty years by Mr. 

 William P. Collier, who hunted his own 

 hounds, and showed great sport on the 

 rivers in Somersetshire and North and 

 East Devon. The Master at the present 

 time is J. H. Wyley, Esq., and he carries 

 the horn himself. Mr. Hastings Clay hunts 

 a pack from Chepstow, and shows a good 

 deal of sport on many of the Welsh rivers, 

 as also in Gloucestershire and Hereford- 

 shire. Otter-hunting, really introduced into 

 the New Forest by the Hon. Grantley 

 Berkeley, is now continued in that district 

 very successfully by Mr. Courtney Tracey, 

 with about fifteen couples of pure and 

 crossed hounds. The Northern Counties 

 Hunt was established as recently as 1903, 

 and up to the present the hounds have been 

 drafts from the Culmstock, Hawkstone, 

 Dumfriesshire, Mr. Thomas Robson's, and 

 the Morpeth. They hunt the rivers over a 

 very wide country, as they find their sport 

 on the Tweed and the Tyne in Northumber- 

 land and go down to the Swale at Middle- 

 ham, Yorkshire. Other packs have hunted 

 these rivers in the past, such as those be- 

 longing to the well-known Mr. John Gallon, 

 Major Browne the great buyer of the Pol- 

 timore Foxhounds and Mr. T. L. Wilkin- 

 son ; but they were not called the Northern 

 Counties. They are now under the Master- 

 ship of F. P. Barnett, Esq., of Whalton, 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne . 



Another pack to hunt other Yorkshire 

 waters, mostly in the West Riding districts, 

 is the Wharfdale, with kennels at Adding- 

 ton. The present hunt was only estab- 

 lished in 1905, but there had been a Wharf- 

 dale Otter Hunt Club, who invited certain 



