1909-1910-] ^ -^^J^ with the Otter Hounds. 229 



" The Otter in India," in ' Chambers's Journal,' vol. ii, 

 1844. By Bishop Heber. 



We passed to my surprise a row of nine or ten large and very beautiful 

 otters, tethered with straw collars and big strings to bamboo stakes on the 

 bank. Some were swimming about at the full extent of their strings or 

 lying half in and out the water ; others were rolling themselves in the sun 

 on the sandbanks uttering a shrill whistling noise as if in play. I was 

 told that most of the fishermen in this neighbourhood kept one or more of 

 these animals, who were almost as tame as dogs, and of great use in 

 fishing, sometimes driving the shoals into the nets, sometimes bringing 

 out the largest fish with their teeth. I was much pleased and interested 

 in the sight. It has always been a fancy of mine that the poor creature 

 whom we waste and persecute to death for no cause but the gratification 

 of our cruelty, might by reasonable treatment be made a source of abund- 

 ant amusement and advantage to us. The simple Hindoo shows here a 

 better taste and judgment than half the otter-hunting and badger-baiting 

 gentry of England, 



From ' The Water Babies.' By Charles Kiugsley. 



He [Tom] looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as 

 the noise : a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one 

 moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass ; and yet it was 

 not a ball ; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and 

 then it joined again ; and all the while the noise came out of it louder and 

 louder. . . . The ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures . . . 

 who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and 

 wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching in the 

 most charming fashion that ever was seen. . . . Then say if otters at play 

 in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefuUest creatures you ever 

 saw. 



From St John's ' Wild Sports in the Highlands.' 



I was rather amused at an old woman living at Sluie on the Findhorn, 

 who, complaining of the hardness of the present times, when " a puir body 

 couldna get a drop o' smuggled whisky, or shoot a rae without his lord- 

 ship's sportsman finding it out," added to her list of grievances that even 

 the otters were nearly all gone, "puir beasties." "Well, but what good 

 could the otters do you ? " I asked. " Good, your honour ? why, scarcely a 

 morn came but they left a bonny grilse on the scarp down yonder, and 

 were none the waur o'" the bit the beasties eat themselves." 



From Mrs Hughes's ' Diary and Letters of Sir W. Scott.' 



Sir Walter Scott and Hogg talked and laughed over the character of a 

 Laird whom they remembered living near Philiphaugh, and was known by 

 the name of " the daft Laird." He was riding through the Ettrick with 

 his man behind him on a pony : all of a sudden he called out, " Jock, I 

 saw an otter in yon pool." In spite of a heavy fall of rain Jock guided 

 VOL. VI. Q 



