214 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN 



lands and villas in the close vicinity of Manchester and other 

 manufacturing places ; the owners of which on Sundays, and to 

 some extent on week-days, are much annoyed by trespassei-s, 

 who, when in pursuit of a sparrow or a blackbird, or simply 

 roaming about with a gun, cannot be made amenable to the 

 laws, because there are neither rabbits nor game to pursue. 

 Unless, therefore, a previous notice had been given not to tres- 

 pass, or some amount of damage done to fences, trees, or land, 

 no case would exist for an action or more sunnnary conviction. 

 The frustration of that attempt of Mr. Bright's I have ever 

 looked back upon with satisfaction ; and though I have lent my 

 best endeavours to remove any unnecessary hardship from the 

 face of the present game laws, such as enacting that persons 

 might keep greyhounds, and hunt with harriers without a game 

 certificate, still I am convinced that the code as it now stands is 

 and would be infinitely preferable to laws which, for the pro- 

 tection of private property, must be made, if it were abolished. 



A good many otters at times use the rivers at Heron Court, 

 and on one occasion I brought my hounds to try the Moors 

 river. Lady Pembroke and her daughters, who were staying at 

 Heron Court, came out to see the sport, and for the first time 

 in her life her ladyship was at the death of an otter. None of 

 my field had ever seen an otter found before, and when the woi'd 

 was given by me on the peculiar squall of my old terrier, named 

 Tip, that " the otter was down," everybody, except Lord Malms- 

 bury and myself, looked for a huge thing swinuning about on 

 the top of the water. The terrier jiut the otter down from a 

 holt in the narrow bank that severed the river from a little pond 

 or back-water, which bank the otter was obliged to cross when 

 in the pond, before he could get into the stream. The sons of 

 Admiral Dashwood were standing by, and I saw the chain or 

 bubbles that marked " the otter's murky way " going straight in 

 a line for the feet of a little boy standing on the brink of the 

 pool, now an officer in her Majesty's 36th regiment of foot. I 

 bade him " look sharp ! " for as it was the first time that the 

 otter was put down, having shunned the danger at the holt, and 



