36 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



exercising their lithe and sinewy limbs in wrestling contests 

 until the day arrived when their craft and high courage should 

 be tested in a struggle for life with gallant hounds and dare-devil 

 terriers. Long ago the Otter ranked as ' vermin ' in some parts 

 of Lakeland. At the commencement of the last century an 

 Otter's head fetched sixpence in Kendal parish: '[June 29 

 1704] Pd. to Joseph Smalwood for Tow Otter Heads 

 £0, Is. 0d.' 



A shilling was the grant allowed for every Otter killed on 

 the Kent between 1731 and 1770. No fewer than thirteen 

 Otters were paid for in the year 1731-2. This was exceptional, 

 because it rarely happened that more than two or three Otters 

 were killed in a season. Whether these Otters were hunted 

 with hounds I do not know, but probably they were. Eichardson 

 described Otter-hunting on Ulleswater a hundred years ago in 

 much the same language as has been employed times out of 

 number to record the doings of local packs of Otter-hounds in 

 our own day. The chief distinction between the old method 

 and the new is that the barbarous use of a spear in hunting- 

 Otters has happily fallen into desuetude. The old method was 

 to strike at the Otter, whenever an opportunity offered, with an 

 ' otter-grains or barbed spear.' 1 



Otter-hunting was originally carried on by the enterprise of 

 a few enthusiasts, each of whom kept two or three hounds, which 

 he could use with the same facility for hunting Foumarts and 

 Otters. After a time separate ownership of hounds ceased. 

 Such dogs as happened to be available were used to form the 

 nucleus of a regular pack. The ' Carlisle Otter Hounds ' 

 assumed a public character in this fashion ; so did the ' West 

 Cumberland Otter Hounds' and the Kendal Hounds. The 

 latter were recently sold to be hunted in Cheshire. Previous to 

 their removal, these dogs had hunted the Lune and the Kent, 

 and had made many good kills on the former river, especially 

 in the neighbourhood of Tebay. The 'West Cumberland' pack 

 hunt the rivers Greta, Cocker, Ellen, and Derwent. They meet 

 sometimes at Buttermere, and occasionally ' kill ' in the neigh- 

 bourhood of that lake. Their waters are greatly inferior to 

 1 Hutchinson's History of Cumberland, vol. i. p. 448. 



