On the Otter and the Chub

Chapter II

Piscator, Venator, Huntsman, and Hostess

Venator. My friend Piscator, you have kept time with my thoughts; for
the sun is just rising, and I myself just now come to this place, and the
dogs have just now put down an Otter. Look ! down at the bottom of the
hill there, in that meadow, chequered with water-lilies and lady-
smocks; there you may see what work they make; look! look! you may
see all busy; men and dogs; dogs and men; all busy.

Piscator. Sir, I am right glad to meet you, and glad to have so fair an
entrance into this day's sport, and glad to see so many dogs, and more
men, all in pursuit of the Otter. Let us compliment no longer, but join
unto them. Come, honest Venator, let us be gone, let us make haste; I
long to be doing; no reasonable hedge or ditch shall hold me.

Venator. Gentleman Huntsman, where found you this Otter?

Huntsman. Marry, Sir, we found her a mile from this place, a-fishing
She has this morning eaten the greatest part of this Trout; she has only
left thus much of it as you see, and was fishing for more; when we
came we found her just at it: but we were here very early, we were here
an hour before sunrise, and have given her no rest since we came; sure
she will hardly escape all these dogs and men. I am to have the skin if
we kill her.

Venator. Why, Sir, what is the skin worth?

Huntsman. It is worth ten shillings to make gloves; the gloves of an
Otter are the best fortification for your hands that can be thought on
against wet weather.

Piscator. I pray, honest Huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant question:
do you hunt a beast or a fish?

Huntsman. Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you; I leave it to be
resolved by the college of Carthusians, who have made vows never to
eat flesh. But, I have heard, the question hath been debated among
many great clerks, and they seem to differ about it; yet most agree that
her tail is fish: and if her body be fish too, then I may say that a fish will
walk upon land: for an Otter does so sometimes, five or six or ten miles
in a night, to catch for her young ones, or to glut herself with fish. And I
can tell you that Pigeons will fly forty miles for a breakfast: but, Sir, I
am sure the Otter devours much fish, and kills and spoils much more
than he eats. And I can tell you, that this dog-fisher, for so the Latins
call him, can smell a fish in the water a hundred yards from him:
Gesner says much farther: and that his stones are good against the
falling sickness; and that there is an herb, Benione, which, being hung
in a linen cloth near a fish-pond, or any haunt that he uses, makes him
to avoid the place; which proves he smells both by water and land. And,
I can tell you, there is brave hunting this water-dog in Cornwall; where
there have been so many, that our learned Camden says there is a river
called Ottersey, which was so named by reason of the abundance of
Otters that bred and fed in it.