132 BULLETIN NO. VII. 
“‘Athough the food of the Otter in general is fish, yet when 
hard pressed by hunger it will not reject animal food of any 
kind. Those we had in confinement, when no fish could be 
procured were fed on beef, which they always preferred boiled. 
During the last winter we ascertained that the skeleton and 
feathers of a wild duck were taken from an Otter’s nest on the 
banks of a rice field reserve-dam. It was conjectured that the 
duck had either been killed or wounded by the hunters, and 
was in this state seized by the Otter, 
“On throwing some live fishes into a sree pond in the 
Zoological Gardens in London, where an Otter [presumably, 
however, of another species] was kept alive, it immediately 
plunged off the bank after them, and soon securing one, rose 
to the surface holding its prize in its teeth, and ascending the 
banks, rapidly ate it by large mouthfuls, and dived into the 
water again for another. This it repeated until it had caug'it 
and eaten all the fish which had been thrown into the water for 
its use. When thus engaged in devouring the luckless fishes 
the Otter bit throught them, crushing the bones, which we could 
hear snapping under the pressure of its powerful jaws.” 
The nest of the European Otter is said to be formed of grass 
and other herbage, and to be usually placed in some hole of a 
river’s bank, protected either by the overhanging bank or by 
the projecting roots of some tree. Its fossorial ability, and the 
general intelligence it displays in the construction of its re- 
treats, have been greatly exaggerated by some writers, to judge 
by the more temperate language used by the distinguished 
author of the History of British Quadrupeds. ‘‘We read of its 
excavating a very artificial habitation,” says Bell, ‘‘burrowing 
under ground to a considerable distance; making the aperture 
of its retreat always under water, and working upwards, form- 
ing here and there a lodge, or dry resting-place, till it reaches 
the surface of the ground at the extremity of its burrow, and 
making there a breathing-hole, always in the middle of a bush 
or thicket.[*]._ This statement is wholly incorrect. The Otter 
avails itself of any convenient excavation, particularly of the 
hollows beneath the overhanging roots of trees which grow on 
the banks of rivers, or any other secure and concealed hole 
near its fishing haunt; though in some cases it fixes its retreat 
at some distance from the water, and when driven by a scanty 
*(The author remarks the similarity of such an account with that given by Mr. 
George Bennett in deseribing the retreats of the Ornithorhynchus of Australia, though 
the former is found in books published long prior t» the discovery of the latter 
animal.] 
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