Forest and Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy, 
Six Months, $1.50. 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1912. 
Entered as second-class matter at the Post-Office, New York, N. Y. 
VOL. LXXIX.—No. 20. 
127 Franklin St., New York. 
Otter Hunting with the Essex Otter Hounds 
S EEING that the United States of America 
simply teem with rattling good sportsmen, 
it seems passing strange that the grand old 
English sport of otter hunting has never been 
given a fair trial in that country. We use the 
words “fair trial” advisedly, as doubtless mas¬ 
ter Lutra canadensis is occasionally hunted in 
,your rivers and streams by a scratch or bobbery 
pack (i. e., a heterogeneous rabble of dogs of all 
sorts, breeds, conditions and sizes), but never so 
far as the present writer has been able to ascer¬ 
tain by searching the kennel books and records 
of the various packs of English, Irish, Scottish 
By J. M. M. B. DURHAM 
Photographs by the Author. 
advice, but with drafts of good hounds from 
their own kennels to boot. 
Otter hunting, which may be pursued dur¬ 
ing the warm season only, is essentially an early 
morning sport, and to assure a good drag, hunts¬ 
men and hounds must be astir early, for during 
the summer months the ground, generally speak¬ 
ing, holds but very little scent when the heavy 
night dew has been dissipated by the hot rays 
of the sun; while to follow on “shank's mare” 
a long and fast drag, with the thermometer regis¬ 
tering perchance 90 degrees in the shade, would 
savor too much of furnace stoking in the tropics. 
panied us, and which had been used to otter 
hunting in his native Scottish isle, bolted a fine 
dog otter from its holt (usually a hole in the 
river bank, or the hollow trunk of a tree, the 
entrance to which is below the surface of the 
water) at the foot of a large alder. For thirty 
minutes or so we enjoyed quite an exciting hunt 
up the valley, the stream being too shallow and 
clear to allow the quarry to elude us by break¬ 
ing back under cover of water, and thanks to 
a very heavy thunderstorm the preceding night 
the earth was well saturated and held a burn¬ 
ing scent. The little terrier, who possessed a 
A HALT ON THE WAY. 
•and Welsh otterhounds has anything in the 
shape of a pack of otterhounds ever crossed 
the “herring pond.” 
There is, we believe, no dearth of otters in 
the rivers and streams of the North American 
continent, and our acquaintance with some of 
the waters in question prompts us to state that 
they might easily be hunted by the “shaggy 
beauties. - ’ Ten or twelve couple of the rough- 
coated, bell-voiced, old-fashioned strain of otter¬ 
hounds and foxhounds (some M. O. H.’s swear 
by the latter) would prove quite sufficient to 
hunt the American waters, and masters of otter¬ 
hounds on this side of the Atlantic would, we 
feel sure, be only too glad to see their favorite 
sport established in the United States of America 
and would further the endeavors of any sports¬ 
man or sportsmen desirous of introducing otter 
ihunting thereto, not only with sound practical 
Notwithstanding such small drawbacks as 
heat and early rising, however, we believe that 
otter hunting would prove a huge success if it 
were once set on foot in districts where sports¬ 
men, and incidentally others, are sufficiently nu¬ 
merous to make the game worthy the candle. 
All expense should of course be covered by sub¬ 
scription. Lutra’s natural habitat being ever by 
lake, river or stream, a drag often runs through 
highly picturesque scenery, and we have in our 
mind’s eye a charming little valley situate not a 
hundred miles from the good old city of Boston, 
Mass., and watered by a bubbling elder-fringed 
brook. 
One glorious July morning, while collecting 
botanical specimens, we came across the se;d 
(i. e., pad-prints) of an otter in the spongy bed 
of a small spring or feeder of the brook. A little 
later old “Mac,” the Skye terrier which accom- 
HARK TO THE RAMBLER. 
wonderful nose, was able to carry the line with 
scarcely a check or a falter, but a single and 
somewhat ancient Skye terrier and a man armed 
with a specimen tin could scarcely be expected 
to hunt an otter to the death. 
Be that as it may, we proved unequal to the 
task, and master Lutra, after showing us what 
he could do as a beast of the chase, made good 
his escape by bolting into a rocky stronghold 
furnished by a cluster of half-submerged boul¬ 
ders from which haven of refuge we were un¬ 
able to dislodge him. A well hunted pack of 
otterhounds, however, would in all probability 
have accounted for that game otter after show¬ 
ing a grand hunt along the banks of the little 
river and through some of the most beautiful 
sylvan and moorland scenery imaginable. 
And now a few words about ways and 
means. Not every sportsman’s purse is suffici- 
