THE BOOK OF THE OTTER 



at length they were so much annoyed by it that 

 they sent for a workman to take up the floor, when 

 to their great astonishment they found that an otter 

 which had inhabited the moat had established her 

 nest beneath the boards of the floor, and had there 

 deposited her litter of young ones, by whose 

 uncouth cries it was that the dinner-party had been 

 disturbed." 



In The Gamekeeper for May, 1914, there is 

 another interesting account of a somewhat similar 

 nature. It says: "On March i3th last, Mr 

 Colwill, a tenant on the Trebartha Estate, Corn- 

 wall, lost a lamb, and there being a mouth of a 

 large drain in the field, thought perhaps there 

 might be a chance of the lamb having gone up the 

 drain. Getting a long stick he put it up the drain, 

 and feeling something move he thought it must be 

 the lamb, but on turning round, saw the lamb 

 coming up the field towards him. The same 

 evening he put some lambs in the shippen in front 

 of some cows, putting them on some hay. Before 



going to bed he went to see that the lambs were 



44 



