HABITS OF OTTERS. 319 



cured to a heavy stoue. When the otter endeavors to emerge 

 from the hole he will press his foot on the trap and thus be 

 caught. If the water is deep enough beneath the hole the 

 trap may be baited with a small fish attached to the pan, and 

 then carefully lowered with its cliain and stone to the bottom. 

 For this purpose the Newhouse, Xo. 3, is best adapted, as the 

 otter is in this case cauglit by the head." Audubon speaks of 

 the latter method as one very commonly emi)loyed in Carolina. 

 His figure of the Otter represents the animal as caught by the 

 fore foot in a trap, baited with a fish on the pan, placed on a 

 slanting log just out of the water. But traps baited on the pan 

 are not set by experts in this mode of trapping. Audubon 

 has also drawn his animal as coming down the \&s from the 

 upper end, which the animal could not have reached without 

 passing over the trap in the other direction. Though drawn, 

 furthermore, '' to represent the pain and terror felt by the 

 creature when its foot is caught by the sharp saw-like teeth of 

 the trap", the Otter is nevertheless holding its foot quietly in 

 the trap, and resting very composedly upon the log, as if it 

 feared to displace the trap. In reality, however, an Otter so 

 caught would be off the log and into the water, trap and all, in 

 a fraction of a second after the jaws snapped. In writing the 

 text to this fancy sketch, moreover, Audubon appears to have 

 forgotten that the trap had no '' sharp saw-like teeth ''j it is 

 correctly drawn with straight-edged jaws, as usually manufac- 

 tured. 



For commercial purposes, the skin of the Otter is removed 

 by a cross-slit down the hind legs, and withdrawn whole, with- 

 out splitting along the belly, the tail, however, being slit its 

 whole length along the under side. The skin is stretched with 

 the hair inside, the tail alone being spread out flat. 



The hunting of the Otter for sport does not appear to be 

 practiced in this country, at least to any extent, and the gun 

 is only incidentally and rarely used for its destruction. The 

 mode of hunting the European animal has been graphically 

 described by Bell, to whom I return for this portion of the 

 subject: — 



'^Otter-hunting, formerly one of the most interesting and 

 exciting amusements of which the English sportsman could 

 boast, has of late years [1837] dwindled into the mere chase of 

 extirpation. It was in other days pursued with much of the 

 pomp and circumstance of regular sport : the Dogs were chosen 



