THE OTTER. 373 



four feet, and weight from twenty to thirty pounds. 

 The female is somewhat smaller. It is reputed to 

 possess a quick sight, but dull olfactory nerves ; and 

 although water would seem to be its proper element, it 

 can, on occasions, make considerable pedestrian excursions. 

 Some assert that it has been known to ascend trees : not 

 an impossible feat it may be, but to my notions a some- 

 what improbable one. 



We are further told that its skin in the dark emits so 

 strong a phosphoric light that the gunner, when on the 

 watch, has no difficulty in detecting its presence. This 

 may be the case ; but although on several occasions, when 

 netting fish in the night-time, we ourselves have heard this 

 animal's somewhat plaintive call-note apparently close to 

 the boat, we were never able to discover its whereabouts. 



According to some authorities, the Otter is a great 

 wanderer. They tell us, for instance, that it spends the 

 summer months in the lakes and rivers of the interior, 

 where it rears its young; but that on the approach of 

 winter it leaves the fresh water and proceeds to the coast, 

 and there passes that inclement season; that during its 

 wanderings it is seldom alone, both parents and cubs 

 being generally in company ; that the family party steer 

 a pretty direct course from river to river, and from lake 

 to lake, though they are often very many miles apart, and 

 the intervening country is mountainous and rugged ; that 

 they journey in the night-time, and have their appointed 

 halting-places, frequently in the crevices of rocks and far 

 away from water, where they secrete themselves during 

 the daytime. 



That Otters dwelling in rivers and lakes near the sea 

 often proceed there on the approach of winter, I can well 

 understand ; but that the migration should be anything 

 like general cannot possibly be the case, because during 

 all seasons of the year, to my personal knowledge, these 



