HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 75 



various crews of the boats were all on deck as the cabin 

 clock pointed nine. 



After dinner, rifles w r ere cleaned and the otters skinned ; 

 the latter a disagreeable process on account of the some- 

 what fetid odour they exhaled. The old bull was found to 

 have four bullets in the body besides the one that finished 

 him. The skin laid out on deck measured from nose to tip 

 of tail six feet five inches, the second bull's six feet two 

 inches, and the cow's five feet nine and a half inches. 



