Otter 



legs are hardly to be distinguished at a little distance, while his 

 heavy short-haired tail is almost as thick at its base as the rest 

 of his body and tapers away fish-like to a point. The sea 

 otter of the North Pacific being nearly as much of a marine 

 animal as is the seal itself, shows the transformation to a per- 

 fectly fish-like shape still further advanced. Even the common 

 otter of our fresh waters swims out from the river's mouth into 

 the sea at times, and has more than once been caught in nets 

 sunk deep in the ocean; undoubtedly the transition is still going 

 on and the otters born a few thousand years hence will look 

 even more like seals than do those of the present day. 



Yet though their legs are short and their bodies so long 

 and heavy as almost to drag along the ground and leave a deep 

 furrow in the snow whenever the otters go about on land in 

 the winter time, they yet make regular journeys overland from 

 one stream or pond to the next. They even essay to go hunt- 

 ing in the woods and thickets occasionally when fishing proves 

 unproductive. 



I have never found much evidence, however, that they are 

 often very successful at such times, though their great strength 

 and suppleness would easily enable them to kill deer or sheep. 



When travelling overland otters follow the smoothest course 

 they can find, going round stumps and hummocks and beneath 

 logs in preference to climbing over them. 



Following the same course week after week, often in families 

 of four or five together, they soon establish a distinct path clear 

 of obstacles; crooked and tortuous yet keeping to the same 

 general direction, and in most cases leading to some rapid or 

 springhole beneath the bank where the water seldom freezes. 



Otters are beautiful swimmers; they glide and shoot along 

 through the water, twisting and turning like the fish they so 

 delight in chasing. I have seen one pursuing a muskrat, as a 

 pickerel pursues a shiner, splashing through the shallow water 

 where the stream had overflowed its banks. At times both 

 would be invisible beneath the surface for several minutes, to 

 appear again perhaps out in the current at a distance, the musk- 

 rat always diving and dodging for its life. 



Otters will also catch wild ducks on the water, raising and 

 seizing them from beneath. They catch their fish by fairly 

 swimming them down in spite of all their twisting and darting. 



