The Canada Otter 829 



outdoors it rolled and tumbled in a snow-drift with evident 

 delight. Sometimes it would run and slide on its breast with 

 all its legs set backwards. Its progress at these times was 

 singular, and continued for much longer than one might expect 

 from the very slight push it began with. It seemed as though 

 the muscles of the breast and belly were in some way helping 

 it on, possibly the tail also aided with its sculling motion. 



Richardson, the great authority on our northern animals, 

 says,'^ concerning its winter travel overland in search of open 

 water: "If seen and pursued by hunters on these journeys, it 

 will throw itself forward on its belly and slide through the 

 snow for several yards, leaving a deep furrow behind it. This 

 movement is repeated with so much rapidity that even a swift 

 runner on snow-shoes has much trouble in overtaking it. It 

 also doubles on its track with much cunning and dives under 

 the snow to elude its pursuers." 



These very manoeuvres were described to me by Linklater. 

 He has often seen Otter sliding on the level snow, and once 

 when he came on one in the woods it dived into the drifts, 

 which were deep, and came up 40 or 50 feet away. By doing 

 this again and again it dodged both the man and the dog, 

 although the latter was a good one and the former on snow- 

 shoes, till it reached a small lake; unfortunately for the Otter, 

 this was frozen over, and on the ice the hunter killed it with 

 a small club. It was a male Otter, and the time about the 

 first of December. 



"On the ice [says Merriam]'^ they proceed by a series of 

 what small boys called 'a run and a slide,' that is, they make 

 several jumps and then slide ahead, flat on their bellies as far 

 as their impetus and the smoothness of the ice permits, and 

 then do the same thing over again, and so on." I may add 

 that this seems to be their regular mode of progression, whether 

 on land or water, ice or snow. 



This method of travel brings us to a remarkable habit for '^™^ 

 which the Otter is celebrated. All hunters and naturalists m 

 Eastern America record its singular amusement of coasting or 



" F. B. A., 1829, I, pp. 57-8. " Mam. Adir., 1884, p. 89. 



