TALKS WITH YOUNG OBSERVERS 303 



In December my little boy and I took our skates 

 and went a mile distant from home into the woods 

 to a series of long, still pools in a wild, rocky stream 

 for an hour's skating. There was a light skim of 

 snow upon the ice, but not enough to interfere seri- 

 ously with our sport, while it was ample to reveal 

 the course of every wild creature that had passed the 

 night before. Here a fox had crossed, there a rab- 

 bit or a squirrel or a muskrat. 



Presently we saw a different track and a strange 

 one. The creature that made it had come out of a 

 hole in the ground about a yard from the edge of 

 the long, narrow pool upon which we were skating, 

 and had gone up the stream, leaving a track upon 

 the snow as large as that of an ordinary-sized dog, 

 but of an entirely different character. 



We had struck the track of an otter, a rare animal 

 in the Hudson River Valley; in fact, rare in any 

 part of the State. We followed it with deep inter- 

 est ; it threw over the familiar stream the air of some 

 remote pool or current in the depths of the Adiron- 

 dacks or the Maine woods. Every few rods the otter 

 had apparently dropped upon his belly and drawn 

 himself along a few feet by his fore paws, leaving 

 a track as if a log or bag of meal had been drawn 

 along there. He did this about every three rods. 



At the head of the pool where the creek was open 

 and the water came brawling down over rocks and 

 stones, the track ended on the edge of the ice; the 

 otter had taken to the water. A cold bath, one 

 would say, in mid- December, but probably no colder 



