118 THE LIFE STORY OF AN OTTER 



asleep, despite the incessant cries of the seals and 

 the ceaseless roar of the waves. They did not 

 awake till the last rays of the sun illumined the 

 surf at the cave's mouth ; but when the shags 

 came flying in to roost, they bestirred themselves, 

 and presently sallied out to fish on the edge of 

 the tide-race and gambol in the swirls of the 

 boiling eddies. 



They used the cave for nearly a week, until 

 tempted by the very fine weather to lie out. 

 Then for three days they hovered in the basin at 

 the summit of the Pillar Rock, about a furlong 

 from the cliffs, their presence known only to the 

 gulls and gannets that sailed overhead. On 

 resuming their round, they came, after four hours' 

 journeying, to the beach of the Gulf Stream 

 fronting the west, and there they fished and 

 frolicked amongst the waves that broke on the 

 shelly strand, and sought couches amongst the 

 sea-rushes that tuft the dunes. They lingered 

 there week after week till the weather changed, 

 but on the night of a lurid sunset, rounded the 

 grim promontory which marks the end of all the 

 land, and set their faces towards the marsh. On 

 the way thither the female otter kept biting off 

 the rushes and carrying them in her mouth, and 

 when she reached the mere she at once chose a 



