312 NORTH AMERICAN MLSTELID.E 



craytisli, xistacus KlamathoLsk . . . lu Klamath lakes the 

 otter is quite common .... their food is a large sucker 

 [Catastomm occidentcdis) and a species of Gila, both rather slug- 

 gish fish and such as would be easily caught" — unlike the very 

 active Salmonida' just mentioned. At the time to which the 

 writer refers, the pelts were much more in demand than those 

 of the Beaver, 62.50 being paid in goods by the Hudson's Bay 

 Company at Vancouver, while Beaver brought only one-fifth 

 as much. 



In the muddy waters of the Missouri Basin, not overstocked 

 with fish, the Otter seems to exist but sparingly. Audubon only 

 ''observed traces" of their presence in his journey up to the 

 Yellowstone. Hayden includes the species among the animals 

 observed in the Upper Missouri country, where, however, it does 

 not appear to have come under Mr. Allen's observation. North 

 of this area, in the region of the Bed Elver and other streams, 

 thence westward to the Eocky ]\[ountains, I ascertained the 

 general, though probably not abundant, occurrence of the spe- 

 cies. Mr. Allen found the Otter to be, in Iowa, "common on 

 the Eaccoon Elvers, and generally more or less so throughout 

 the State''; — "occasional along the streams*' of Kansas; — and 

 " more or less frequent in Salt Lake Valley, and in the adjoining 

 mountains''. Drs. Coues and Yarrow give the species as found 

 sparingly in various portions of the Southwestern Territories. 

 My recent exi)loration of portions of Colorado did not reveal the 

 presence of the Otter, but I do not on this account deny its ex«- 

 istence, perhaps in abundance, in the numerous mountain lakes 

 and streams of that State, which harbor countless Beavers, 

 and seem in every way suited to the requirements of the Otter.* 



In Audubon's time, the Otter was "still abundant in the riv- 

 ers and reserve-dams of the rice fields of Carolina", and was 

 "not rare in Georgia, Louisiana and Texas". According to 

 Mr. Allen, it is still "abundant" in Florida, where it is little 

 hunted, its fur being, in this southern region, of comparatively 

 little value. But the southern limits of the distribution of the 

 species remain to be determined. A Mexican Otter is certainly 

 of a different species from ours, whether or not the latter also 

 exists in that country; and I am not aware of any unquestion- 

 able citation of true canadensis as Mexican. I am therefore 

 much surprised at Dr. von Frantzius's recent citation of this spB- 



*8iuce tills paragraph was penuetl,! have seen a specinien in Mrs. Max- 

 well's collection, from the vicinity of Bonldei-, Colorado. 



