28 THE LIFE STORY OF AN OTTER 



annoyed beyond endurance, rose and chased the 

 rabbits along the tunnels ; but this only made 

 them worse. After that the drumming was kept 

 up in every level, and made the visitors long for 

 night. So at early dusk, after another raid on 

 the persecutors, the otters slid down the bank 

 into the water and let the stream take them 

 along reach after reach until they were far into 

 the wood. All the way they never ceased to 

 scan the banks ; they seemed to suspect an enemy 

 behind every tree, but surely without sufficient 

 cause. At one spot the green eyes of a fox 

 watched them as they passed, otherwise they 

 floated along unnoticed save by the bats flitting 

 up and down the dark spaces beneath the over- 

 hanging boughs. On reaching the fallen pine 

 they began to fish, and so continued all the way 

 to the salmon pool, where they sported till dawn 

 drove them again to the morass. 



During the weeks that followed they kept to 

 the neighbourhood of the old nursery, lying up 

 for the most part under rocks and tree-roots at 

 the water's edge, but occasionally in the morass 

 itself. It was whilst couching there that the 

 otter, alarmed by the continued fall of the river 

 and the exposure of the mouths of the strongest 

 hovers, suddenly resolved to make for the tidal 



