SEA-OTTER. 151 



at a fixed rendezvous. It is sometimes speared, and the 

 natives also kill it on shore with clubs, or net it in 

 inlets of the sea. 



H. W. Elliott, in "An Arctic Province " (pages 131 

 and 132), says : — 



" The Sea-Otter seldom visits the shore, and then 

 only ^Yhen the weather is abnormally stormy at sea. 

 Instead of being a fish-eater, like Ltitra canadensis, it 

 feeds almost wholly upon clams, crabs, mussels, and 

 echinoderms, or ' sea-urchins,' as might be inferred 

 from its peculiar flat molars of dentition. 



" The Sea-Otter mother clasps her young to her 

 breast between her fore-paws, and stretches herself at 

 full length on her back in the ocean when she desires to 

 sleep, and she suckles it also in this position. The pup 

 cannot live without its mother, though frequent attempts 

 have been made by hunters to raise them, for the little 

 animals are very often captured alive and wholly 

 uninjured ; but, like some other animals, they seem to 

 be so deeply imbued with fear or dislike of man that 

 they invariably die of self-imposed starvation. The 

 Enhydra is not polygamous, and it is seldom, indeed, 

 that the natives, when out in search of it, ever see more 

 than one animal at a time. The flesh is very unpalat- 

 able, highly charged with a rank taste and odour. A 

 single pup is born, as the rule, about fifteen inches in 

 length." 



