MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 1 59 



to have been shipped from Canada by the Hudson Bay Co. alone to London 

 in 1873. God man says that over 17,000 were sent in one year by the same 

 company in the early part of the 19th century. Their value as a raw fur at 

 present runs as high as ^10 or ^12 for northern specimens. Regarding the 

 home of our otter, I will quote from an account I published on " New Jersey 

 Otters" in "The Friend," a Philadelphia weekly, under date of February 24, 

 1894: 



"Very few of us have ever seen a live otter, and perhaps the majority be- 

 lieve this animal to have long since become extinct in the settled parts of the 

 Middle States. On the contrary, it is not a rare inhabitant of the wilder 

 parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and is occasionally met with in the 

 larger streams of our more thickly populated districts. 



" Its apparent rarity is chiefly due to its nocturnal and aquatic habits and 

 to its extreme wariness, and, as will be shown, this deception is further 

 accomplished by its peculiar domestic economy in the construction of its 

 burrow. 



"By this happy combination the otter exists among us to-day, the only 

 large fur-bearing animal fitted to survive in the midst of civilized surround- 

 ings such as have long since caused the extermination of its former associates, 

 the panther, wolf and beaver. 



"This result cannot be attributed to the greater value of the latter as 

 objects of the chase, for the peltry of a full-grown otter is to-day worth much 

 more than that of a beaver, and nearly thrice that of a wolf. 



" Recent inquiries into the habits and distribution of our native mammals 

 have been rewarded by answers from several correspondents in Pennsylvania 

 and New Jersey, and I have been struck with the frequency with which the 

 otter is made the subject of them. The larger number of these advices re- 

 lated to the presence of this animal in New Jersey. Among these was a kind 

 note from the editor of The Friend, stating that he had seen a large burrow 

 (said to have been the home of an otter), while hunting fossils in a clay pit 

 on the bank of Pensaukin Creek, near Lenola, New Jersey, and I gladly 

 accepted my friend's invitation to pay the place a visit. 



" The site of this burrow was found to lie in the left bank of the creek, just 

 above the bridge on the Camden & Burlington County Railroad. It is about 

 five miles from the Delaware River and near the head of the tide-water 

 marsh. Extensive and deep deposits of brick clay, overlaid with a thin 

 stratum of ferruginous fossil-bearing marl, are here situated. In driving their 

 excavations through this bed, Augustus Reeve, the owner of the works, had 

 removed a wide and deep section of the creek bank, both at right angles and 

 parallel to the course of the stream, leaving a steep section of the face of the 

 bluff intact. Standing in the excavation, my attention was called to two holes 

 high up in the face of this solid clay wall. One of them was about ten feet 



