legs are hardly to be distinguished at a little distance, while his 
heavy short-haired tail is almost as thick at its base as the rest 
of his body and tapers away fish-like to a point. The sea 
otter of the North Pacific being nearly as much of a marine 
animal as is the seal itself, shows the transformation to a per- 
fectly fish-like shape still further advanced. Even the common 
otter of our fresh waters swims out from the river's mouth into 
the sea at times, and has more than once been caught in nets 
sunk deep in the ocean; undoubtedly the transition is still going 
on and the otters born a few thousand years hence will look 
even more like seals than do those of the present day. 
Yet though their legs are short and their bodies so long 
and heavy as almost to drag along the ground and leave a deep 
furrow in the snow whenever the otters go about on land in 
the winter time, they yet make regular journeys overland from 
one stream or pond to the next. They even essay to go hunt- 
ing in the woods and thickets occasionally when fishing proves 
unproductive. 
I have never found much evidence, however, that they are 
often very successful at such times, though their great strength 
and suppleness would easily enable them to kill deer or sheep. 
When travelling overland otters follow the smoothest course 
they can find, going round stumps and hummocks and beneath 
logs in preference to climbing over them. 
Following the same course week after week, often in families 
of four or five together, they soon establish a distinct path clear 
of obstacles; crooked and tortuous yet keeping to the same 
general direction, and in most cases leading to some rapid or 
springhole beneath the bank where the water seldom freezes. 
Otters are beautiful swimmers; they glide and shoot along 
through the water, twisting and turning like the fish they so 
delight in chasing. I have seen one pursuing a muskrat, as a 
pickerel pursues a shiner, splashing through the shallow water 
where the stream had overflowed its banks. At times both 
would be invisible beneath the surface for several minutes, to 
appear again perhaps out in the current at a distance, the musk- 
rat always diving and dodging for its life. 
Otters will also catch wild ducks on the water, raising and 
seizing them from beneath. They catch their fish by fairly 
swimming them down in spite of all their twisting and darting. 
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