CHINESE OTTER. 385 
and would eat all kinds of garden pests, such as snails, worms, and grubs, detaching the 
snails from their shells with great dexterity. She would also leap upon the chairs as “they 
stood by the windows and catch and eat flies as they fluttered on the window-panes. She 
struck up a warm friendship with an Angora cat, and on one occasion when her friend was 
attacked by a dog, she flew at the assailant, seized him by the jaw, and was so excited that 
her master was ob liged to separate the combatants and to send the dog out of the room. 
The mode of instruction which is followed in the education of the Otter is sufticiently 
simple. The creature is by degrees weaned from its usual fish diet, and taught to live 
almost wholly on bread and milk ; the only fish-like article which it is permitted to see 
being a leathern caricature of the finny race, with which the young Otter is habituated to 
play, as a kitten plays with a crumpled paper or a cork, w hich does temporary duty for a 
mouse. When the animal has accustomed itself to chase and catch the artificial fish, and 
to give it into the hand of its master, the teacher extends his instructions by drawing the 
leathern im: ige smartly into the water by means of a string, and encouraging his pupil to 
plunge into the stream after the lure and bring it ashore. As soon as the young Otter 
yields the leathern prey, it is rewarded by some dainty morsel which its teacher is “careful 
to keep at hand, and soon learns to connect the two circumstances together. 
CHINESE OTTER.—Lutra Chinensis 
Having become proficient in the preliminary instructions, the pupil is further tested 
by the substitution of a veritable, but a dead fish, in heu of the manufactured article, 
and is taught to chase, capture, and yield the fish at the command of its master. A living 
fish is then affixed to a line in order to be brought by the Otter from the water in which 
it is permitted to swim; and lastly, the pupil is taught to pursue and capture living fish, 
which are thrown into the water before its eyes. The remaining point of instruction is to 
take the so-far trained animal to the water-side, and induce it to chase and bring to shore 
the inhabitants of the stream, as they rove free and unconstrained in their native element. 
In many parts of the world the Otter is admirably trained for this purpose, and is 
taught to aid its master, not only by capturing single fish, but by driving whole shoals of 
fishes into the ready nets. 
When in pursuit of its finny prey, the Otter displays a grace and power which cannot 
be appreciated without ocular investigation. The animal glides through the watery 
element with such consummate ease and swiftness, and bends its pliant body with such 
flexible undulations, that the quick and wary fish are worsted in their own art, and fall 
easy victims to the Otter’s superior aquatic powers. So easily does it glide into the water, 
that no sound is heard, and scarcely a ripple seen to mark the time or place of its 
entrance ; and when it emerges upon the shore, it withdraws its body from the stream 
with the same noiseless ease that characterizes its entrance. The Otter is a playful 
Ie Cre 
