40 THE LIFE STORY OF AN OTTER 



shell-fish and swam swiftly to land. There the 

 otter dropped the mussels she carried, seized 

 one between her paws, bit off the end of 

 the shell and devoured the fish. Scarcely had 

 she swallowed it before the cubs were busy 

 breaking the brittle shells and feasting on the 

 succulent contents ; and the crackling noise that 

 broke the silence would have puzzled any chance 

 visitor to the wood, but was no unfamiliar sound 

 to the birds that roosted in the overhanging oaks. 

 The otters made several journeys to and from the 

 mussel-bed, till they had eaten their fill; then 

 fell to gambolling on the edge of the tideway, 

 to the annoyance of a heron, which soon took 

 wing for a station higher up the creek. Two or 

 three hours they there spent in play, varied by 

 excursions into the wood, where they startled a 

 hare and put the brooding pheasants in a fever. 

 Once they penetrated to the craggy summit, 

 climbed the rocks, lapped the water in the 

 highest of the basins, and, before jumping down, 

 gazed across the intervening country to where 

 the estuary glimmered between its dusky shores. 

 The beach was almost covered by the advancing 

 tide when the otters took to the water and 

 drifted up with the flood. Their outstretched 

 limbs being flush with the surface, they looked 



