342 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



eel-catcher at once dropped upon his knees and fired, putting 

 the whole charge into the animal's back. Going back, he 

 got into his light marsh boat, and quanted down to his prey, 

 finding him dead. Some of the fenmen say " they take the 

 flash off" the gun." A few nights afterwards this same man 

 heard one in the reeds, so he set a large steel-fall in the 

 brute's trail, placing the trap under water. The next morn- 

 ing he went and found the otter had pulled the trap into the 

 reeds, where he discovered him. He struck at the brute with 

 the stock of his gun. The otter dodged the blow, and dived 

 under the hover. As he came up again, the eel-catcher 

 struck at him again ; but again he dived and escaped, and it 

 was not till the fifth stroke that he hit him a smart blow, the 

 otter seeming apparently dead. But as he went to pick him 

 up, he saw the creature move; the beast was shamming. 

 So he struck him again, and again the brute shammed, until 

 the third blow finished him. 



Once when flighting I heard a soft whistling in the reed, a 

 soft wkeet, wheet. I took the noise for a spotted rail ; but the 

 season was wrong for them, and as I peered into the water, 

 an otter passed within two yards of the boat, a-fishing bent, 

 no doubt. Every time his nose came up he whistled. A 

 gunner told me he was flighting one night, when an otter 

 passed within fourteen yards of his boat. He waited till 

 the beast swam into "a clear," when he could see the 

 creature fully — his head, part of his body, and his tail being 

 above water he fired just as it went into the gladen, and 

 on going to the spot found strips of felt two inches long, 

 but no otter. This same gunner has shot two out of five 

 whilst playing in the gladen, and says he once saw a big 

 " bull-headed " one — " the biggest warmin he ever see." But 

 this must have been due to some peculiar effect of lighting, 

 for he assures me "the warmin's head warn't flat." Otters 

 look darker, too, just as they leave the water. 



Perhaps one of their most astonishing habits is their 

 method of progressing along a frozen dike. They swim 



