14 THE LIFE STORY OF AN OTTER 



them more exacting. On the morrow they 

 would have her release them the moment the 

 sun dipped below the crest and the shadow of the 

 upland fell on the morass. But she turned a 

 deaf ear to their entreaties and, when they 

 became insubordinate and attempted to force a 

 way past her, punished them with many sharp 

 nips and kept them back. 



She was also much troubled at this time by 

 their refusal to eat the fish with which she had 

 been doing her best to tempt them. It mattered 

 not whether she offered them samlet, trout, or 

 eel, they turned from all alike, and it seemed as 

 if they would never be brought to touch any. 

 Nevertheless she persisted, till one night, on 

 the bank of the deep pool below the rapids, the 

 male cub took a trout from her mouth, and the 

 next night, just before dawn, his sister did the 

 same. Their aversion to solid food once over- 

 come, they would chatter over the new diet as 

 if to testify to the pleasure they found in the 

 exercise of their newly acquired taste, or even 

 hiss angrily when their savage passions were 

 stirred by the wriggling or quivering of the fish 

 in their grip. They held the prey between the 

 fore-paws, slicing off delicate morsels with their 

 pearly teeth, and champing them fine before 



