1 8 LAKES AND RIVERS. 



at night to fish by the pale light of the moon and 

 associate with its kindred by the river-side, its master 

 of course was too generous to find any fault with its 

 peculiar mode of spending its evening hours. In 

 the morning it was always at its post in the kennel, 

 and no animal understood better the secret of keeping 

 its own side of the house. Indeed, its pugnacity in 

 this respect gave it a great lift in the favour of the 

 gamekeeper, who talked of its feats wherever he went, 

 and averred, besides, that if the best cur that ever ran 

 " only daured to grin " at his protege, it would soon 

 make its teeth meet through him. To mankind, how- 

 ever, it was much more civil, and allowed itself to 

 be gently lifted by the tail, though it objected to any 

 interference with its snout, which is probably with it 

 the seat of honour. Otter-hunting was much more 

 frequently pursued a few generations ago than it is at 

 the present day. An instance proving that otters are 

 able to catch even the largest of the inland-water fish 

 has been communicated to the German Fishing 

 Gazette as having happened in Norway : " The fresh 

 remains of an otter-meal were discovered a few days 

 ago upon the banks of the Lardalsely, in Norway, 

 consisting of the head and tail-end of a salmon. The 

 weight of the head was six pounds, and that of the 

 tail-end up to the lowest point of the dorsal fin, twenty 

 English pounds. The marks of the fore-paws of the 

 otter upon the tail-end of the salmon indicated 

 clearly that the otter must have caught hold of the 

 fish at the tail, and that he had let himself be dragged 

 along by the salmon until the latter's strength had been 

 entirely exhausted, when it fell an easy prey to its 

 enemy. To judge from the proportions of the dis- 



