EXTERNAL CHARACTERS OF LUTRA CANDADENSIS. 297 



border of the maiu bald plantar surface. (Form, stature, and coloration not 

 diagnostic.) Finally attaining a total length of four feet or more; liver- 

 brown, with purplish gloss, paler on the under surface of the head, throat, 



and breast. 



Description of external characters.* 



This Otter shares the well-known form common to most 

 species of the genus — the massive columnar body, without con- 

 striction of neck, small globose head, small eyes and ears, long 

 taper tail, short stout limbs, and broad webbed feet, with close- 

 set glossy fur and abundant woolly under-fur. Externally, the 

 special form of the nose-pad and the state of furring of the 

 palms and soles are the chief, if not the sole, characters dis- 

 tinguishing the species from several of its congeners. 



The nose-pad is remarkably well developed — almost as much 

 so as in Enhydris — perfectly bald, and in adult life tessellated 

 by subdivision into very numerous small flat-topped papillse. 

 In general shape, it is an equilateral penta- 

 gon, with one side inferior, horizontal, and 

 straight across, the next side on either hand 

 irregular, owing to the shape of the nasal 

 apertures, the two remaining sides coming 

 together obliquely above to a median acute 

 angle, high above a line drawn across the 

 tops of the nostrils. It somewhat resembles ^^ose-pad of i. canadensis. 

 the ace of spades.t The lower horizontal Nat. size. 



border is below a line drawn across the bottom of the nos- 

 trils; it sometimes sends down a small naked spur vertically 

 towards the tip, sometimes not ; either of the borders not oc- 

 cupied by the nostrils may be a little convex or a little con- 

 cave, or sigmoidal. (In Lutra vulgaris, the nose-pad is very 

 small, and entirely confined between the nostrils. In a com- 

 mon species of Mexico, said also to inhabit California, and in 

 fact to extend from Chili to Kamtschatka, the nose-pad is con- 

 siderably more developed than in L. vulgaris, yet much less so 

 than in canadensis; the upper outline is deeply double-concave, 

 like WW, and the lower outline, which does not reach below the 

 nostrils, is concave, like ^. In tbe Saricovienne, Lutra hrasUien- 



* From various specimens in the National Museum from different portions 

 of North America. 



tThe figure, copied from Baird, is perhaps rather too near an ace-of-clubs 

 shape; according to the dried specimens from which I drew my text, the 

 top of the figure should be more pointed, and the lines thence rather less 

 curved. 



