NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



When captured young and kindly treated, the 

 Cape Otter soon becomes quite tame, and will 

 follow its master about, trotting at his heels after 

 the manner of a dog. We captured a young otter 

 once in Natal, and kept it alive in a pond in a wire- 

 netting enclosure. It was perfectly tame, and made 

 great friends with the dogs, and loved to romp and 

 play with them. It was exceedingly playful — in 

 fact as much so as a kitten. 



It preferred flesh food to any other kind of diet. 

 Crabs were chewed up and swallowed entire. 



In the wild condition the Cape Otter is carniv- 

 orous. Its diet is varied, consisting of fish, which 

 it hunts in the water, usually in pairs or family 

 parties consisting of the parents and cubs. Possess- 

 ing no webs to its toes, it is, in consequence, 

 not so swift and agile in the water as its web-footed 

 relatives ; therefore the fish which usually fall 

 victims to it are the slow-swimming eels and cat- 

 fish. The rivers and spruits in many parts of 

 South Africa dry up during times of drought, and 

 only isolated pools remain. In these the fish are 

 pent up, and fall a comparatively easy prey to the 

 otter. 



Fish, however, as a general rule are difiicult to 

 catch, and moreover are not too plentiful in South 

 African rivers, so a fish diet is largely supplemented 

 or quite superseded by fresh-water crabs, river mus- 

 sels, water tortoises, monitor lizards, frogs, and 

 other kinds of aquatic creatures. Water birds often 



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