viii PREFACE 



grounds. It has been known to travel fifteen 

 miles in a night, and not infrequently the holts 

 where it lies up during the day are ten or twelve 

 miles apart. 



On the way to its quarters it will linger to 

 fish or hunt, and the remains of eel, salmon, 

 pike, rabbit, moorhen or wild-duck mark the 

 scene of the midnight feast. But no matter 

 how much it may leave uneaten the otter never 

 returns to a kill, and so escapes the traps with 

 which gamekeeper or water-bailiff is sure to ring 

 the ground about it. Unlike its congener the 

 polecat, the otter does not hoard food ; unless the 

 caches of frogs occasionally found in marshes 

 are its work, and not that of the heron as is 

 generally supposed. 



However that may be it is certain that it does 

 not hibernate, but is abroad night after night 

 the whole year round. Indeed, as often as not, 

 the female produces her young in the depth of 

 winter, and indefatigable forager though she is, 

 must often be sore pressed to provide food for 

 her litter. At times the conditions are too 

 severe, and a tragedy ensues. At Mullyon, in 

 Mount's Bay, one bitterly cold December, when 

 the Poldhu stream was frozen and the sea too 

 rough and discoloured for the otter to fish, the 



