THE SURVIVAL OF THE OTTER 123 



longed playfulness in youth a period of irre- 

 sponsible and apparently joyous apprenticeship to the 

 future business of life. Who shall say that the 

 mother does not in some measure renew her youth as 

 she shares in the " hide-and-seek " and gambols of 

 her cubs ? It is indeed a remarkable fact in regard 

 to this fascinating animal that playfulness never 

 quite leaves it; that even the fathers and mothers 

 of families cannot resist the appeal of situations 

 that suggest a frolic, and that they will play up 

 to the very gates of death "most playsomest 

 critturs on God's earth," said one of Mr. Tregar- 

 then's Cornish friends. 



To return to education, the young cubs have also 

 to learn to like the taste of fish, to catch them 

 without fuss, and to eat them in the proper way 

 the eel from the tail and the trout from the head. 

 They have to learn how to catch frogs and how 

 to skin them, for the outside is unpalatable; how 

 to guddle for trout and eels; how to detect the 

 plaice in the shallow waters of the bay, hidden in 

 or against the sand, with only their eyes showing. 

 They have to learn how to deal with rabbit and 

 moorhen, and, through it all, they have to keep 

 working away at the long alphabet of danger- 

 sounds especially those proceeding from man and 

 dog. They have to learn all the diverse ways of 

 lying perdu in and out of the water. There can be 

 no doubt that the prolonged youth and the elaborate 

 parental instruction count for much in the per- 

 sistent survival of the otter a kind of fact still 



