BEARS 65 



The home of the otter is called a ^Miolt^' or a 

 '' hover." It is generally an excavation in the bank 

 of a stream, which is approached by a long tunnel, 

 having its opening below the surface of the water, 

 thus enabling the otter not only to enter his home 

 unseen, but to slip into the water and swim away if 

 his holt is attacked. There is a ventilating hole 

 opening in the bank and several chambers opening 

 out of the tunnel. In an otter^s holt which was un- 

 covered by Harvie Brown and described in his 'Fauna 

 of Argyll and the Inner Hebrides,^ the tunnel was 

 15 feet long, and a chamber near the entrance seemed 

 to serve as the kitchen midden, being full of empty 

 mollusc shells, pieces of lobster shells and fragments 

 of fish. In rocky country the holt may be under a 

 large boulder or in a cairn of stones. The stumps 

 of hollow willows often afford safe retreats. Otters 

 travel many miles from water, probably in search 

 of food when the fish supply runs short. They 

 have even been known to attack poultry runs and 

 young lambs. They also go down to the sea and 

 frequent the estuaries of rivers to catch the salmon 

 as they run up the rivers from the sea. 



"Emerging,^^ says Mr. Millais, "about sundown 

 from its retreat in the bank or reed bed, the otter 

 slips noiselessly into the water for the evening hunt. 

 If you are ever so near you will not hear the slightest 

 sound, as the movement of entering the water is so 

 easy and 'oily^ that the animal may almost be said 

 to pour itself into the stream. Otters often hunt 

 alone, but sometimes two join together in attacking 

 salmon, although a full-grown otter is individually 



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