134 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



THE WEIGHT AND LENGTH OF OTTERS. 



By H. W. Robinson. 



In the last vol. of the " Annals," No. 66, Mr. Harvie-Brown,. 

 in mentioning Otters of 28 and 26 lb., concludes by saying 

 that record weights which are authentic are desirable. As a 

 hunter of Otters nearly all my life with many different packs- 

 of hounds, and also as a collector of information concerning 

 the animal, from personal experience, from masters of Otter 

 hounds, and from such publications as " The Field," perhaps 

 some of these statistics may be of interest. 



The average length of an Otter has been given in 

 numerous works on British mammals as 44 inches, which is- 

 about right, taking dogs and bitches together. Bell gives- 

 the average weight as 20 to 24 lb. for the male, and 16 to 

 20 lb. for the female : the former is correct, but the latter is 

 too heavy, being from 14 to i6\ for the average. Still he 

 is very near the mark, which is more than can be said of the- 

 explanatory labels on the Otter case in the Natural History 

 Museum at South Kensington, where the weights are under 

 the mark. 



Daniel, in his " Rural Sports," is much below the mark 

 when he gives the usual length as 39 inches, and above the- 

 mark when he says that the bitch may vary in weight from 

 13 to 22 lb. Anything over 25 lb. for a dog and 16 lb. 

 for a bitch is large. Pennant mentions one as having been 

 killed on the Lea near Ware which weighed 40 lb., and 

 another killed by the Carmarthen hounds is given as having 

 measured 66 inches, and said to have weighed 50 lb. 

 Daniel says that the record was one taken in the river Lea 

 between Hertford to Ware in October 1794 which proved 

 " upward of 40 lb.," this being probably the same one 

 mentioned by Pennant. Daniel also says that : — " In April 

 1804, the Otter hounds of Mr. Coleman of Lemonster killed 

 in Monkland Mill Pond, an Otter of extraordinary size ; it 

 measured from the nose to the end of the tail 5 8 inches, and 

 weighed 34^ lb." 



In the "Zoologist" for 1849, P^g^ 2407, Mr. M'Intosh 

 mentions one in his possession which measured in the flesh. 



