NATURAL HISTORY OF THE OTTER 



a week they can swim with the fishes a week which 

 seems more like play than school, for the otter is 

 one of the animals in which there is prolonged play- 

 fulness in youth. Who shall say that the mother 

 does not in some measure renew her youth as she 

 shares in the " hide-and-seek " and gambols of her 

 cubs ? It is indeed a remarkable fact in regard 

 to this fascinating animal that playfulness never 

 quite leaves it ; that even the fathers and mothers 

 of families cannot resist the appeal of situations 

 that suggest a frolic, and that they will play up 

 to the very gates of death " most playsomest 

 critturs on God's earth," said one of Mr. Tregarthen's 

 Cornish friends. 



To return to education, the young cubs have also 

 to learn to like the taste of fish, to catch them 

 without fuss, and to eat them in the proper way 

 the eel from the tail and the trout from the head. 

 They have to learn how to catch frogs and how to 

 skin them, for the outside is unpleasant ; how to 

 guddle for trout and eels ; how to detect the plaice 

 in the shallow waters of the bay, hidden in or against 

 the sand, with only their eyes showing. They have 

 to learn how to deal with rabbit and moorhen, 

 and, through it all, they have to keep working away 

 at the long alphabet of danger-sounds especially 

 those coming from man and dog. They have to 

 learn all the ways of lying hidden in and out of water. 

 There can be no doubt that the long youth and the 

 careful teaching count for much in the survival 

 of the otter. 



Another attractive feature about the otter is its 

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