31G NORTH AMERICAN MUSTELID.F.. 



its use. NN'heu thus engaged iu devouring the liiekless fishes 

 the Otter bit through them, crushing the bones, which we could 

 hear snapping under the pressure of its powerful jaws." 



The nest of the European Otter is said to be formed of grass 

 and other herbage, and to be usually placed in some hole of a 

 river's bank, protected either by the overhanging bank or by 

 the projecting roots of some tree. Its fossorial ability, and the 

 general intelligence it displays in the construction of its re- 

 treats, have been greatly exaggerated by some writers, to judge 

 by the more temperate language used by the distinguished 

 author of the History of British Quadrupeds. "We read of its 

 excavating a very artificial habitation," says Bell, " burrowing 

 under ground to a considerable distance ; making the aperture 

 of its retreat always under water, and working upwards, form- 

 ing here and there a lodge, or dry resting-place, till it reaches 

 the surface of the ground at the extremity of its burrow, and 

 making there a breathing-hole, always in the middle of a bush 

 or thicket. [*] This statement is wholly incorrect. The Otter 

 avails itself of any convenient excavation, particularly of the 

 hollows beneath the overhanging roots of trees which grow on 

 the banks of rivers, or any other secure and concealed hole 

 near its fishing-haunt j though in some cases it fixes its retreat 

 at some distance from the water, and when driven by a scanty 

 supply of fish, it has been known to resort far inland, to the 

 neighbourhood of the farm-yard, and attack lambs, sucking 

 pigs, and poultry, — thus assuming for a time the habits of its 

 more terrestrial congeners." I am not aware that such extrav- 

 agant statements have been made, with any authority at least, 

 respecting the American Otter; and indeed one has only to 

 regard the general configuration of the animal, and particu- 

 larly the shape of the fore limbs and condition of the claws, to 

 become convinced that the mining operations of the animal 

 are necessarily limited. It does not appear that the under- 

 ground retreats of the Otter are constructed with the skill and 

 ingenuity of even those of the Muskrat. A retreat examined 

 by Audubon has been thus described by this author: — 



" One morning we observed that some of these animals re- 

 sorted to the neighbourhood of the root of a large tree which 



* [The author remarks the similarity of such au account with that given 

 "by Mr. George Bennett in describing the retreats of the Oniithorhynchus of 

 Australia, though the former is found in books published long prior lo the 

 discovery of the latter animal.] 



