266 Tlit Tame Otter. Ciiapt. XX 



" they are very numerous on this coast, they may now and then hunt 

 " in the sea. This otter is trained in some parts of Bengal to assist in 

 " fishing, by driving the fish into the nets. Young ones are not 

 " unusually caught in the fishermen's nets, and are very easily tamed. 

 " I had one brought me when very young, whilst at Tellicherry, on the 

 " Malabar Coast, which I brought up with a. terrier dog, with whom 

 " it became very friendly. This otter would follow me in my walks 

 " like a dog, and amnse itself by a few gambols in the water when it 

 '• had the opportunity, and now and then caught frogs and small fish. 

 " As it grew older it took to going about by itself, and one day found 

 " its way to the bazaar, and seized a large fish 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 conveyed 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 entered the temporary shed, walked 

 " across the floor, and came and lay down at my feet !" 



The peculiar formation of the otter's tail is not without interest. 

 It is not round like that of a dog, cat, or rat, but flattened, and 

 specially at the base, where it is 3 inches broad, It is flattened 

 horizontally, too, as in the Cetaceans (whales and porpoises, etc.), 

 and not perpendicularly as in true tish. Were it meant only for a 

 propeller in swimming it would have been most useful had it been 

 put on like a true fish's, but the advantage of having it flattened 

 horizontally is that the otter, like the whale and the porpoise, is 

 thereby enabled to come rapidly to the surface for air. Ordinarily 



"was strongly inclined to believe them distinct. My impression ires thai the com- 

 •• niuii otter .if most of the rivers ••(' Southern India, al all events, was distinct from 

 ■ ■ the generally larger, and more robusl otter found in such numbers along the 

 " Malabar ooasl , and in Lower Bengal ; and thai the latter, besides being larger, had 

 "the Bur more reddish or yellowish-brown, and with the two colours much more 

 "distinctly divided; in fart, more resembling Lutra vulgaris; hut in the absence 

 "of authentic specimens, I can only draw the attention of observers for future 

 ■• verification." 



