282 COMMON BEASTS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



secured before he has had time to pull himself 

 together and take refuge on the nearest wall. 



Otters are naturally very common in the lower 

 delta of the Ganges, where the land is traversed 

 by innumerable water-courses, and interrupted by 

 ponds and marshes swarming with fish. They do 

 not, however, often make their appearance in 

 gardens, and very rarely invade the interior of the 

 town of Calcutta. A pair of them many years 

 ago had their head-quarters in a small pond, choked 

 with a rank growth of Papyrus, in the Botanic 

 Garden, and now and then one or two of them 

 will, for a time, haunt one or other of the ponds on 

 the maidan, but, as a rule, they avoid the immediate 

 neighbourhood of the town. Common otters, Lutra 

 vulgaris, are not so much used by the fishermen 

 of the Hugli as by those who work in the channels 

 of the Sundarbans and the large rivers further east 

 in the delta. Every now and then, however, the 

 presence of a boat provided with a pack of them 

 is advertised by the shrill, querulous cries which 

 they so frequently utter at any time, and which 

 fill the air every time they are sent into the water 

 by their owners. Their duties lie, not in directly 

 catching fish, but in alarming them and driving 

 them about so as to facilitate the netting operations 

 of the fishermen. The ease and vigour with which 

 they move, alternately swimming at the surface of 

 the water, yelping incessantly, and then suddenly 



