16 THE LIFE STORY OF AN OTTER 



close of March by an incident they never forgot 

 — an incident which caused the otter even greater 

 consternation than it caused the cubs. It hap- 

 pened late one afternoon. The male cub had 

 awakened from his second sleep and, with head 

 resting on his mother's flank, sat looking at the 

 light fade over the wind-swept morass. During 

 a lull an unaccountable rustling in the reeds 

 caught his ears and brought him to his feet. 

 The startled movement aroused his mother and 

 sister, and in a trice all three otters were watch- 

 ing from behind the grass screen for a sight of 

 the noisy intruder. The next instant they saw 

 a fox, bedraggled almost beyond recognition, 

 stagger from the reeds, drop from the bank 

 to the stream, lap, raise his head and listen, 

 lap again, then toil with bog-stained body and 

 sodden brush up the opposite bank and pass from 

 view. He could not have got far beyond the 

 river, for which he seemed to be heading, before 

 a hound came in sight, then two more, followed 

 almost immediately by the body of the pack, 

 which poured over the brow of the upland and 

 streamed down a gully towards the morass. 

 Soon they had disappeared, but whine after 

 whine reached the otters' ears, mingled with the 

 crashing of the brake as the pack approached 



