838 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



witnessed one of these little altercations, but am told that a 

 drowned dog is generally the result."^" {Merriam.) 



Otter hunters in Europe tell me that such is the power of 

 its bite, that it is not a rare thing for an Otter to crush a hound's 

 leg-bone in its jaws. 



The most desperate achievement accredited to this animal 

 appears in Nelson's "Alaska":*' 



"An Otter [he says] was one of the chief actors in a strange 

 accident which occurred near the Yukon mouth during my 

 residence in the north. A hunter went out to inspect his fish 

 traps, and, failing to return in the course of a day or so, his 

 friends began to look for him. He was found lying dead by 

 the side of a small lake with his throat torn open and the tail of 

 a dead Otter firmly grasped in both hands. One of the Otter's 

 feet was fast in a steel fox-trap, and it was supposed that on 

 his way home the hunter came across the Otter in the trap and, 

 having no weapon with him and being a powerful young man, 

 he tried to swing the Otter over his head and kill it by dashing it 

 against the ground, but when in mid-air it turned suddenly and 

 caught him by the throat, with the result as described." 



CAPT- This fur-bearer is usually taken with a steel trap and fish- 



head bait, but traps that do not kill are cruel, and humanity 

 would force all trappers back to the old deadfalls of a hundred 

 years ago. My friend, A. W. Dimock, writes me thus from 

 Punta Rassa, Fla.: 



"Last year (1905) I held a fiercely struggling Otter crushed 

 into the mud with a forked stick, while the cruel steel trap was 

 taken from her lacerated leg and a cage placed over her. Two 

 days later she ate her new-born pups, and in two days more, 

 despite every attention, she died of grief and pain. Now I 

 would make the use of a steel trap a penal ofTence and wearing 

 pelt of a trapped wild creature a misdemeanour." 



In some parts of the country Otter are killed by taking ad- 

 vantage of the sliding habit. Having found the slide, the hunter 



»» Mam. Adir., 1884, p. 90. 



" Nat. Hist. Alaska, 1887, p. 250. 



URE 



