132 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 



degree, and everything had been done to make it 

 comfortable. Was this death due to nervous 

 alarm ? There seems no other explanation of it. 



The deer, wild-cat, bear, raccoon, mink, weasel, 

 skunk, muskrat, porcupine, beaver (but how rare 

 is the sight of a living beaver, even after one has 

 found its tenanted dams !) and the great company 

 of squirrels, gophers, and the like, we know pretty 

 well, and feel their presence in our woods, waters, 

 and prairies ; but who has seen, or ever hopes to 

 see, an otter, although these fine animals still se- 

 crete themselves in all parts of the Union ? Tho- 

 reau relates that when he spoke of this animal to 

 the oldest doctor in Concord, who should be, he 

 thought, ex officio, a naturalist, the worthy physi- 

 cian was greatly surprised at the suggestion that 

 it lived in Massachusetts, although he recalled 

 that the Pilgrims sent home a great number of 

 otter skins, among other peltries, in the first ship 

 that returned to England. Then Thoreau pro- 

 ceeded to inform him of what he had seen that 

 day, the 6th of December, 1856, at 2 P.M., as 

 recorded in his diary : 



"To Hubbard's Bridge and Holden Swamp, 

 and up river on ice. . . . Just this side of Bittern 

 Cliff, I see the very remarkable track of an otter, 

 made undoubtedly December 3d, when the snow- 

 ice was mere slush. It had come up through a 

 hole (now black ice) by the stem of a button-bush, 

 and apparently pushed its way through the slush, 



