Kilve, in common with other villages situated on this part of the Somerset shore, indulges in a curious kind of sport: that of “hunting the conger.” It is in the autumn that the unfortunate conger-eel is taken unawares, through the low tides that then generally prevail. The conger, known here as the “glatt,” is the big brother of the ordinary sand-eel, who is dug out of the foreshore, all round our coasts. He lives in the blue lias mud hereabouts, generally beneath the boulders that are sprinkled about the shore like currants in a bun; and is clever enough, in the ordinary way, to have his home well below low-water mark. But the treacherous spring-tides are the undoing of him; laying bare perhaps a hundred and sixty feet more of mud than usual. At such times a large proportion of the rustic population anywhere near the shore assembles and proceeds to the muddy or sandy flats, accompanied by fox-terriers and other dogs, and armed with stout six or eight-feet-long sticks, cut from the hedges and sharpened at one end to a chisel-like edge. If there be by any chance a belated visitor in those October days when hunting the glatt is usually in full swing he is apt to imagine the simple villagers are trying to take a rise out of his ignorance of country life, when, in answer to his questions, they tell him they are off hunting conger-eels—and with dogs! But it is simple truth. Hunting the wild red deer on Exmoor is the aristocratic sport of this countryside, and hunting the conger is the democratic; and where in a purely inland district your sporting rustic may keep his lurcher, here the rural sportsman values his terrier or spaniel in proportion to his merits as “a good fish dog.” There is not that smartness among the pursuers of the glatt which is the mark of the hunting-field in the chase of the fox or the deer, and renders a fox-hunt or a meet of staghounds so spectacular a sight. Smart clothes are not the proper equipment of the glatt-hunter, whose hunting chiefly consists in wading, ankle-deep, through the mud, heaving up huge boulders, and mud-whacking after the wriggling, writhing congers, while the dogs rush frantically among the crowd, scraping holes in the mud and essaying the not very easy task of seizing the slippery fish. In fact, the oldest clothes are not too bad for this sport; and the spectacle of a company of such sportsmen as these, properly habited for the occasion, is rather that of an assemblage of scarecrows than that of a number of self-respecting members of the community. That this precaution of wearing the oldest possible garments is not an excess of caution becomes abundantly evident at the conclusion of a rousing day’s sport, when the mud has been flying in proportion to the enthusiasm of the chase, and every one has become abundantly splashed, from top to toe. The congers, or “glatts,” captured on these occasions scale, as a rule, about four or five pounds, but occasionally run to twenty pounds.