88 LUTRIN^E. 



from a Moplah. When resisted, it showed such fight that the rightful 

 owner was fain to drop it. Afterwards it took regularly to this highway 

 style of living, and I had on several occasions to pay for my pet's dinner 

 rather more than was necessary, so I resolved to get rid of it. I put it 

 in a closed box, and having kept it without food for some time, I con- 

 veyed it myself in a boat some seven or eight miles off, up some of the 

 numerous backwaters on this coast. I then liberated it, and when it had 

 wandered out of sight among some inundated paddy-fields, I returned by 

 boat by a different route. That same evening, about 9 P.M., whilst in the 

 town, about one and a half miles from my own house, witnessing some 

 of the ceremonials connected with the Mohurrum festival, the otter en- 

 tered the temporary shed, walked across the floor, and came and lay 

 down at my feet ! 



The specific name given by F. Quvier is unfortunate, it being only the 

 termination of the common native name Nir-nai, or water-dog, and 

 wrongly spelled moreover. Blyth, in his Catalogue, records a specimen 

 from Algeria, quite undistinguishable from specimens from Bengal. 



101. Lutra vulgaris. 



ERXLEBEN. BLYTH, Cat. 216. L. monticola, HODGSON. 

 THE HILL OTTER. 



Descr. Above bistre-brown j below sordid hoary, vaguely defined 

 except on the lips and chin ; limbs dark ; fur long and rough, not ad- 

 pressed. Such is Hodgson's description of his monticola. Blyth describes 

 a specimen from Darjeeling, as "fur longish, dark colcothar-brown, 

 slightly grizzled, with a paler ing near the tip ; beneath fulvous white, 

 which extends to the tip of the tail ; the pale lower parts beneath abruptly 

 separated from the brown above. The second incisor is slightly out of 

 its place behind the others." This is also noticed by Hodgson. 



Length, head and body, 32 inches ; tail 20. 



Blyth has compared the skull of this otter with that of the European 

 one, and finds them identical. The skull differs from that of L. nair in 

 being more compressed between the orbits. 



As far as we at present know, the common otter of Europe is restricted, 

 in India, to the interior of the Himalayas. 



Hodgson has described a small otter from the hills, as Lutra auro- 

 brunnea. Size small ; habit of body vermiform ; tail less than two-thirds 

 ojf the length of the body ; toes and nails fully developed ; fur longish and 



