88 THE LIFE STORY OF AN OTTER 



over the rocks towards the reeds, where he was 

 soon at work preparing a couch in which to pass 

 the coming day. The unusual noise awoke a 

 buzzard in his eyrie above, and kept him awake 

 until the otter ceased trampling the stems and 

 entered the water ; then he lowered his head on 

 his wing and dropped asleep again. 



The otter, meanwhile, swam towards the horn 

 of the bay, his long back flush with the surface, 

 scarce rippled by his advance. When clear of 

 the point, he dived and began exploring the 

 recesses and ledges. There was not a harbourage 

 along the cliff's base that he did not investigate, 

 but he did not sight a single fish. Reaching the 

 glassy surface by the overflow, he spreadeagled 

 himself and drifted more and more quickly 

 towards the lip of the fall, till it seemed that 

 nothing could save him from going over ; but 

 within a foot or two of the brink he suddenly 

 wheeled, and extricated himself by rapid strokes 

 that took him within a score yards of the beach. 

 Then he dived again and quested along the 

 stretch between the shallows and the deep. This 

 likely hunting-ground also proved as void of fish 

 as the water under the cliff; so at the farther 

 end he landed, shook his coat, and rolled on the 

 shingle, thus catching the skull of the pike, which 



