6 Otters and Otter-Hunting. 



have been between seventeen and twenty years old. 

 It is, of course, a matter of mere conjecture : as is 

 Bell's statement that the female goes with young 

 nine weeks. 



We are on more certain ground when we come to 

 discuss the number of cubs in a litter. Lydekker 

 gives these as from " three to five," and I am 

 inclined to think this is correct. I have never found 

 more than five in a couch, though I have heard of 

 six, but there is always the chance of this having 

 been a case of two litters laid down by different 

 bitches in the same holt. This may, of course, be 

 the case when five are found, though, curiously 

 enough, in the graphic if rather bloodthirsty 

 account of an Otter-hunt in '' The Compleat 

 Angler," Izaak Walton makes the huntsman find 

 " young ones, no less than five," in the kennel of 

 the bitch Otter he had just killed. Three, when 

 very small, is a common number to find; but when 

 hunted it is rare to " put down " more than two 

 cubs with the mother. What becomes of the third 

 cub in these circumstances is a mystery as yet un- 

 solved, seeing that the Otter in these realms has no 

 natural enemy, and is subject to no known disease. 



It was formerly supposed that Otters, like many 

 other beasts, bred only in the spring of the year. 

 The testimony of everyone who has studied the 

 habits of the Otter for any length of time, how- 



