

DESTRUCTION FOR SKINS AND OIL 169 



annual export averaged only some forty-four skins fetched 

 "40?. the pece" but thereafter the price seems gradually 

 to have fallen. About 1800, according to the Dumfries 

 Courier vt February 2ist, 1829, a Dumfries dealer who pur- 

 chased sixty otter skins from a single individual, paid close 

 on 305-. each for them; but the statistics of the Dumfries 

 Fur Market show that from 1829 to 1869, when otter skins 

 ceased to be forthcoming, the price averaged rather under 

 los. a skin, and although it rose in 1840 to i$s., it frequently 

 fell so low as 55. and 6^., and touched its lowest ebb of 35-. to 

 6s. in 1866. 



Nevertheless in the early days of trading the export was 

 sufficiently great to warrant the imposition of a customs duty, 

 which was modified from one halfpenny "on ilk otyr" in the 

 fourteenth century, to sixpence on every ten otter skins 

 exported in the fifteenth. In later times Scottish otter skins 

 were mostly forwarded to London, where they were manu- 

 factured into gaudily decked purses for export to Africa, but 

 apart from this, the demand was chiefly a local one. 



The destruction of Otters for their fur, because of their 

 raids upon Salmon and Trout, and for sport, has made inroads 

 upon their numbers, occasionally attributed to other causes. 



"The Ottars, also Seals or Seiches, and other such Sea-creatures," wrote 

 Brand in 1701 concerning Orkney, "are very numerous but now their 

 number is so much diminished, that not one of Twenty is to be seen, and 

 they have found several of them lying dead upon the Shore ; some hence 

 observing that the Judgments of GOD as to scarcity of suitable Provisions 

 to these Creatures are upon the Waters also." 



The Dumfries Fur Market gives clearer evidence of their 

 gradual decline, for while 1829 saw 50 skins on sale, and 

 1831, 226, thereafter the greatest number recorded was 36 

 (1863), an d after falling to six in 1866, otter skins ceased 

 to appear three years later. As the prices, which during 

 these forty years remain wonderfully steady despite an 

 occasional large rise or fall, give no indication that the 

 falling off was due to lack of demand, it is reasonable to 

 conclude that it may represent a real decline in the numbers 

 of Otters in the Scottish Lowlands, whence the supply of 

 the market was drawn. 



The tale of a single "vermin" list will indicate the penalty 

 paid by the Otter for its depredations in fishing streams. On 



