THE BRITISH MAMMALS : THEIR GENERA AND SPECIES. 45 



there are from four to eight litters a year. From this species have 

 come all the fancy rabbits, and it is of wide distribution, largely 

 owing to the agency of man. It is spread all over the British 

 Isles, including Ireland, and seems to be increasing rather than 

 diminishing in numbers. 



Lutra. Plate vii. 

 29. vulgaris, 



CARNIVORA. . \ 



OTTER. Body long.; neck 

 colour ; all toes webbed. 



thick ; dark brown in 



The Otter has a dark chestnut-brown colour of its own, lighter 

 on the throat and breast, the whitish woolly under-fur being concealed 

 beneath a coat of coarse shining hairs in much the same way as in 

 the seals. The head and body average about twenty-eight inches in 

 length, the flattish tapering tail being a trifle over half as long. The 



OTTER. 

 (Lutra vulgar-is.} 



head is broad and flat, the ears hairy, short, and rounded ; the nostrils 

 are a pair of lateral slits closed when diving, the eyes are black and 

 small. The head narrows just behind the orbit as is clearly shown 

 in the skull and the neck is almost as thick as the body. The limbs 

 are short and strong, and the toes are webbed and furnished with 

 small curved blunt claws. There are three incisors and a canine in 

 each jaw, and three or four premolars and one molar in the upper 

 jaw, three premolars and two molars in the lower. When there are 

 four upper premolars the first is generally small ; all the premolars 

 have sharp cusps. The blade of the upper flesh tooth, that is, the 

 last premolar, has three cusps and a large sharp inner lobe, but the 

 most characteristic tooth in the jaw is the adjoining upper molar, 

 which is broader than long and almost square in the crown. The 

 male or "dog" otter is larger than the female; the young are five 

 or less in number, and are generally born in the winter. The otter's 

 home is a hollow in the river bank under the roots of a tree, or a 

 long burrow, the " holt," communicating with the bank at one end, 

 and at the other with the surface of the ground, perhaps ten feet or 

 more away from the river. The prey consists almost entirely of fis&. 



