THE OTTER AND HIS NATURE
An otter is a common beast enough and therefore I need not tell of his
making. She liveth with (on?) fish and dwelleth by rivers and by ponds
and _stanks_ (pools). And sometimes she feedeth on grass of the
meadows and bideth gladly under the roots of trees near the rivers,
and goeth to her feeding as doth other beasts to grass, but only in
the new grass time, and to fish as I have said. They swimmeth in
waters and rivers and sometimes diveth under the water when they will,
and therefore no fish can escape them unless it be too great a one.
They doth great harm specially in ponds and in stanks, for a couple of
otters without more shall well destroy the fish of a great pond or
great stank, and therefore men hunt them. They go in their love at the
time that ferrets do, so they that hold (keep) ferrets in their houses
may well know the time thereof. They bear their whelps as long as the
ferrets and sometimes more and sometimes less. They whelp in holes
under the trees near the rivers. Men hunt at them with hounds by
great mastery, as I say hereafter.[101] And also men take them at
other times in rivers with small cords as men do the fox with nets and
with other gins. She hath an evil biting and venomous and with her
strength defendeth herself mightily from the hounds. And when she is
taken with nets unless men get to her at once she rendeth them with
her teeth and delivereth herself out of them. Longer will I not make
mention of her, nor of her nature, for the hunting at her is the best
that men may see of her, save only that she has the foot of a goose,
for she hath a little skin from one claw to another, and she hath no
heel save that she hath a little lump under the foot, and men speak of
the steps or the marches of the otter as men speak of the trace of the
hart, and his fumes (excrements) tredeles or spraints. The otter
dwelleth but little in one place, for where she goeth the fish be sore
afraid. Sometimes she will swim upwards and downwards seeking the fish
a mile or two unless it be in a stank.
[101] The author of "Master of Game" does not say anything more about
the otter.
[Illustration: OTTER-HUNTING (From MS. f. fr. 616, _Bib. Nat._,
Paris)]
_Of the remnant of his nature I refer to Milbourne[102] the king's
otter hunter. As of all other vermin I speak not, that is to say of
martens and pole cats, for no good hunter goeth to the wood with his
hounds intending to hunt for them, nor for the wild cat either.
Nevertheless when men seek in covert for the fox and can find none,
and the hounds happen to find them and then the hunter rejoiceth his
hounds for the exploit of his hounds, and also because it is vermin
that they run to. Of conies I do not speak, for no man hunteth them
unless it be bishhunters_ (fur hunters), _and they hunt them with
ferrets and with long small hayes. Those raches that run to a coney at
any time ought to be rated saying to them loud, "Ware riot, ware," for
no other wild beast in England is called riot save the coney only._
[102] In Priv. Seal 674/6456, Feb. 18, 1410, William Melbourne is
valet of our otterhounds. See Appendix: Otter.