OTTER'S HAUNTS AND HABITS 



attack a weakly or wounded creature, even if 

 belonging to their own kind, and the otter which 

 goes for a hooked salmon does so because he knows 

 he stands a better chance of catching it than other 

 fish in the same pool which are free and 

 untrammelled. 



The otter must, therefore, do considerable good 

 by ridding the streams of weak and sickly fish. 

 An otter deals with large sea trout as it does with 

 salmon, but in the case of trout it frequently eats 

 them entire, leaving nothing to waste. When 

 devouring fish an otter eats like a cat, with half- 

 closed eyes. In the case of coarse fish, the otter 

 often discards the head and tail, and in the same 

 way with an eel, the head may be left. Those 

 who decry the otter as a fish-poacher should 

 remember that the animal does not confine his 

 attentions solely to one pool or to one species of 

 diet during his nightly wanderings. He may fish 

 and otherwise feed up-stream for some miles, 

 taking a trout here, an eel there, and perhaps a 



young rabbit somewhere else. 



59 



