NUMBER XL 

 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE OTTER 



THE otter is so shy a creature that few naturalists 

 have had more than glimpses of its everyday 

 (or rather, every-night) life. But its natural history 

 has been finely studied in Mr. J. C. Tregarthen's 

 Life Story of the Otter, on which we must for the 

 most part rely. The question with which we are 

 especially concerned is how the otter manages to 

 hold its own, even in countries like Britain where 

 so many of the finer wild mammals, such as marten 

 and wild-cat, have become very few and far between. 

 It is not enough to refer to the otter's cleverness, 

 its keen senses of sight, hearing, touch, and smell, 

 its muscular equipment, so marked in the grip of 

 its jaw, the back-stroke of the hind-legs, and the 

 sweep of the steering tail, for the two mammals 

 we mentioned above are not deficient in these 

 qualities, and yet their present-day tenure of life 

 is much less secure than the otter's. 



What particular virtues has the otter that enable 

 it to keep its foothold in spite of man's persecution 

 and the dwindling of wild places ? The general 

 answer is that the otter has comparatively few wild 

 enemies, and that it is in great part nocturnal in 



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