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.

And thus much for my knowledge of the Otter; which you may now see
above water at vent, and the dogs close with him; I now see he will not
last long. Follow, therefore, my masters, follow; for Sweetlips was like
to have him at this last vent.

Venator. Oh me! all the horse are got over the river, what shall we do
now? shall we follow them over the water ?