CHAPTER VI. 



THE OTTEE. 



OTTERS are now so seldom seen, even along Cross- 

 wicks Creek, that it may be counted a piece of great good 

 luck to meet with one in the course of a day's ramble. 

 I feel repaid for the exertion of a ten-mile tramp if one 

 crosses my path, or if I catch a glimpse of one as it dives 

 into the stream. Not much to be learned, I grant, from 

 such a brief acquaintance ; but there is, at least, the satis- 

 faction of knowing that otters are about ; and then it 

 becomes our business to find them, not for them to make 

 an exhibition of themselves, or publish the whereabouts 

 of their chosen haunts. 



Though these animals are now quite rare, it has not 

 been many years since they were comparatively abundant. 

 Local history informs us that they were formerly to be 

 found in Crosswicks Creek, and in my mucky meadows 

 even, in great numbers, and it has preserved the details 

 of certain wonderful hunts in which a dozen or more 

 pelts were secured in one day. "My four otter-skin 

 lap-robes and my otter-skin great-coat " are items in the 

 will of one who lived near by, less than half a century 

 ago. There are even old trappers still living who for- 

 merly depended upon otter-skins as the main source of 

 their profit in a winter's trapping. So much for the ir- 

 recoverable past ! 



My notes make mention of a sunny day in June, 1869, 



