DEC. eley's cartridges. 65 



where he expects the otter will appear on his way 

 up or down the burn. This plan seldom fails, and 

 he not unfrequently makes his appearance in the 

 morning with a dead otter in his hand, the result of 

 many hours of patient watching in a winter's night, 

 of which the disordered and somewhat bemudded 

 appearance of his habiliments bears further witness. 

 I cannot plead guilty of ever sending him on these 

 expeditions. In the first place I have no very 

 deadly feud with the otters ; and, in the next, I 

 think that the old fellow would be better in his bed 

 than squatting under a broken bank through a long 

 winter's night. 



Though not an advocate for Eley's cartridges for 

 game shooting, I use a great number of them 

 against stronger animals, such as otters, foxes, and 

 roe, and also for wild-fowl shooting of all kinds. 

 In steady hands these cartridges undoubtedly do 

 great execution amongst ducks and geese ; but they 

 are very apt to induce the sportsman to take shots 

 which are too long and random, conceiving that no 

 distance is too great for this kind of charge. That 

 they very frequently do not open at all, or at any 

 rate sufficiently soon, I have clearly ascertained ; 

 and I have often found in shooting roe and hares 

 that the cartridge has passed through the animal 

 like a single ball. Every sportsman knows that 



