Water Poachers. 183 



not partake of soft-bodied fish so long as they 

 can be found. The economy of the otter ought 

 not to be overlooked in connection with sport 

 and our fish supply. Probably its increasing rarity 

 has as much to do with the disease alluded to 

 as had the extermination of the nobler birds of 

 prey with the grouse disease. A falcon always 

 takes the easiest chance at its prey ; and an otter 

 captures the slowest fish. In each case they kill 

 off the weakest, the most diseased, and thereby 

 secure the survival of the fittest. Most of the 

 newspaper paragraphs anent the doings of otters 

 are mere legendary stories without any founda- 

 tion in fact. The otter is not a " fish-slicer." 

 Salmon found upon the rocks w r ith the flesh 

 bitten from the shoulders are oftener than not 

 there by agents other than Lutra. A great deal 

 of unnatural history has been written concerning 

 the " water-dog," mostly by those who have 

 never had opportunity of studying the otter in 

 its haunts. That it occasionally destroys fish we 

 will not deny ; but this liking has become 

 such a stereotyped fact (?) in natural history 

 that it is glibly repeated, parrot-like, and has 

 continued so long, that most have come to 

 accept it. Ask the otter-hunter, the old angler 

 of the rocky northern streams, the field naturalist 

 who has many a night stretched his length along 

 a slab of rock to observe the otter at home 



