132 BULLETIN NO. VII. 



"Athough the food of the Otter in general is fish, yet when 

 hard pressed by hunger it will not reject animal food of any 

 kind. Those we had in confinement, when no fish could be 

 procured were fed on beef, which they always preferred boiled. 

 During the last winter we ascertained that the skeleton and 

 feathers of a wild duck were taken from an Otter's nest on the 

 banks of a rice field reserve-dam. It was conjectured that the 

 duck had either been killed or wounded by the hunters, and 

 was in this state seized by the Otter, .... 



"On throwing some live fishes into a small pond in the 

 Zoological Gardens in London, where an Otter [presumably, 

 however, of another species] was kept alive, it immediately 

 plunged off the bank after them, and soon securing one, rose 

 to the surface holding its prize in its teeth, and ascending the 

 banks, rapidly ate it by large mouthfuls, and dived into the 

 water again for another. This it repeated until it had caug ! .t 

 and eaten all the fish which had been thrown into the water for 

 its use. When thus engaged in devouring the luckless fishes 

 theOtter bit : throught them, crushing the bones, which we could 

 hear snapping under the pressure of its powerful jaws." 



The nest of the European Otter is said to be formed of grass 

 and other herbage, and to be usually placed in some hole of a 

 river's bank, protected either by the overhanging bank or by 

 the projecting roots of some tree. Its fossorial ability, and the 

 general intelligence it displays in the construction of its re- 

 treats, have been greatly exaggerated by some writers, to judge 

 by the more temperate language used by the distinguished 

 author of the History of British Quadrupeds. "We read of its 

 excavating a very artificial habitation," says Bell, "burrowing 

 under ground to a considerable distance; making the aperture 

 of its retreat always under water, and working upwards, form- 

 ing here and there a lodge, or dry resting-place, till it reaches 

 the surface of the ground at the extremity of its burrow, and 

 making there a breathing- hole, always in the middle of a bush 

 or thicket. [*]. This statement is wholly incorrect. The Otter 

 avails itself of any convenient excavation, particularly of the 

 hollows beneath the overhanging roots of trees which grow on 

 the banks of rivers, or any other secure and concealed hole 

 near its fishing haunt; though in some cases it fixes its retreat 

 at some distance from the water, and when driven by a scanty 



*[The author remarks the similarity of such an account with that given by Mr. 

 George Bennett in describing the retreats of the Ornithorhynchua of Australia, though 

 the former Is found in books published long prior tj the discovery of the latter 

 animal.] 



