466 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
water, and drowning it. The dog can not well get hold of the otter 
because of its slippery coat. 
Although a semiaquatic animal, always seeking a home near small 
lakes or streams, it is said to make quite long journeys overland from 
one watercourse to another, always going around or under obstacles, 
instead of climbing over them. It is widely but not profusely dis- 
tributed from Canada to Florida, and closely related species are found 
in Europe and South America. 
The fur is quite valuable and would probably be more generally used 
were it easier to obtain. Three thousand three hundred skins were 
reported to be sold in the June sales of the London market. This 
animal must not be confounded with the closely related sea otter, 
found only in the Arctic regions, which produces one of the most valu- 
able furs known to commerce, but is now nearly extinct. 
There can usually be seen at the park a number of other small fur- 
bearing animals, such as the marten, the fisher, the mink, and the 
striped skunk, a very interesting and sociable animal when deprived 
of his scent bags. The skunk is usually very easily tamed, and even 
in a wild state shows but little fear of man, relying rather upon the 
dread which its natural means of defense inspires. The black-footed 
ferret, an intelligent and active little animal from the plains of the 
West, may also be seen here, and its relative, the common ferret, used 
for exterminating rats. 
Neither are there wanting certain indigenous animals, the remnants 
of the original wild stock that inhabited the land before the park was 
established. Once, walking along the main road in the park, I chanced 
to meet a weasel who had so fearless and aggressive an attitude that 
I did not know but what he was about to dispute my passage. It isno 
doubt to such marauders that we owe the loss of a good many speci- 
mens from the ponds for aquatic birds. 
THE ALLIGATORS. 
When the fur seals first came to the park there was built for them, 
close by the beaver pen, a fine swimming pool, but experience showed 
that this situation was too hot for them in our long summer days, and 
the pool was given over to the alligators, although they seem rather 
out of place here among the fur-bearmg mammals. About a dozen of 
these unpleasant-looking saurians, of all sizes, may be seen here lazily 
basking in the sun. Let any unusual noise or movement occur near 
their inclosure and they at once scurry into the water, where they 
float, looking very much like submerged logs, with but little more than 
the nostrils, eyes, and dark knobby back visible. These animals were 
formerly quite common in the southeastern parts of the United States, 
but at present, owing to the demand for their hides and the fact that 
