62 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 



minutes fourteen or more were in the play. 



Most of the coasters emerged from an open 

 place in the ice over the rapids, but others came 

 down the river over the snow. As the otter 

 population of this region was sparse the attend- 

 ance probably included the otter representatives 

 of an extensive area. Tracks in the snow 

 showed that four possibly a family had come 

 from another stream, travelling over a high in- 

 tervening ridge four or five miles across. Many 

 may have come twenty miles or farther. 



The winter had been dry and cold. The few 

 otters recently seen by daylight were hunting 

 over the snow for grouse and rabbits, far from 

 the stream. Otter food was scarce. Probably 

 many, possibly all, of these merrymakers were 

 hungry, but little would you have guessed it 

 from their play. 



It was a merry-go-round of coasters climbing 

 up single file by the slide while coaster after 

 coaster shot singly down. Each appeared to start 

 with a head-foremost vault or dive and to dart 

 downward over the slides with all legs flattened 

 and pointing backward. Each coaster, as a rule, 

 shot straight to the bottom, though a few times 

 one went off at an angle and finished with a roll. 

 A successful slide carried the coaster far out 

 on the smooth ice and occasionally to the farther 

 bank of the river. 



