330 Notes on Otters. . [ ZOE 
the stream, being careful to keep above them. The wind was blow- 
ing up stream from them towards me, so they did not scent me and 
appeared entirely unsuspicious. 
I was nowowithin fifty yards of them; so as quietly as possible | 
laid down the paddle and, picking up the rifle, let the boat drift. The 
current carried me rapidly toward the otters and I was just about to 
shoot when the canoe quietly grounded on a submerged rock and 
hung poised in mid stream. I was now within thirty yards of the 
game and had an unobstructed view of all their movements. 
There were six of them in all, four pups and two adults. They 
were diving for fish and each one that went down came up with a 
trout in his mouth. He would then gulp him down without going 
ashore, and at once dive for another. Their heads sticking above 
the water, their mouths wide open, with the white of their lips and 
gums showing, reminded me ofa lot of rubber tubes. 
There was a moss-covered root sticking out of the water near by, 
and every now and then a couple of the pups would climb out on 
this and chase each other and _ play like two kittens. 
While I watched them they caught six or eight trout from four to 
six inches in length, bolting them down with evident relish. 
All this time, however, the current was taking the older ones, who 
seemed to do most of the fishing, further down the stream. This 
was a reminder that it was time for me to take a hand in the game. 
I waited until two of the pups crawled out on the root, and drawing 
down as fine as possible on one of them I pressed the trigger. 
Between those forest walls the roar of the gun sounded like a small 
cannon. For a few seconds there was a great splashing and com- 
motion and then all was still. Not an otter was to be seen. I had 
apparently missed a dead shot. Impelled by a vicious shove from 
the setting pole, the canoe shot alongside the root, and there, strug- 
gling in the water behind it, was a fine young otter with a bullet hole 
through his head. o 
_ Otters sometimes follow down the streams of this region into tide 
water. An old trapper once showed me an otter slide on the muddy 
banks of the Hoquiam River not two miles from Gray’s Harbor, the 
river at this point being a slough in which the tide ebbs and flows. 
The slide was very faintly indicated and I should never have known 
what it was if he had not pointed it out to me. Young otter are 
readily tamed and make most interesting and pretty pets. 
