824 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



about for a few days before enticing them to mount on her back 

 and embark on a voyage of discovery. For the first few days 

 in the water she swims with them, but soon dives and returns 

 to them again and again, until she has induced them to copy 

 her movements. 



"In their prehminary efi^orts at natation, young Otters 

 are just as frightened as they can be, and keep querulously 

 calling for their mother all the time she is out of sight. But at 

 first she does not upset their baby natures, and only vanishes 

 for a few minutes. As the young grow, these intervals become 

 longer and longer, till she induces them to follow her in shallow 

 water or in a still lake. I once had the good fortune to see an 

 old female Otter playing with her three nearly full-grown 

 young ones and evidently teaching them to dive. 



"She teaches them to dive noiselessly, to circle in deep 

 pools, and how to come up quietly behind sleeping fish or drive 

 them into holes in the banks. Then they are taught to stir the 

 mud with their pads, or turn over stones for hidden miller's- 

 thumbs, and bury their heads in the mud after eels, or how to 

 corner the darting salmon. 



"That the swimming powers and the hunting of fish are 

 acquired habits is shown by the fact that young Otters kept 

 tame and allowed to run loose are almost full grown before they 

 will take to the water; they grow up with Stoat-like habits, /. e., 

 hunting for their food on land." 



A. H. Cocks says' of those (British) he bred in confine- 

 ment that the young were blind until about 35 days old and 

 entered the water of their own accord on the 58th day. 

 He gives a suggestive account of the mother's efforts to make 

 them eat two small fish, some four days later, "taking first 

 one fish, then the other, then both together in her mouth, and 

 moving them about close in front of the cubs to attract their 

 attention, at the same time uttering a peculiar whine or growl." 



SUMMER During the summer, the Otter family, mother and young, 



may be seen travelling and hunting together. 



' Zoologist, 1882, p. 203. 



