MAMMALS. 65 



Crossopus fodiens (Pall). Water Shrew. 



[We have no further record of this species beyond the one men- 

 tioned by Messrs. Baikie and Heddle as having been killed in 

 Walls in 1847.] 



Section AECTOIDEA. 

 Family MUSTELID^. 

 Lutra vulgaris, Erxl. Otter. 



The Otter is the only species of this genus found in the Orkneys. 

 Otters are yet abundant in most of the islands, the large extent of 

 seaboard giving them great facilities for escaping observation and 

 for concealment. In the early spring they wander much up and 

 down the inland streams, and make regular roads in cutting off 

 corners from one pool to another. This, and the green mounds 

 on which they leave their droppings, which latter always seem 

 very small for the size of the animal, betray their presence any- 

 where, although the animals themselves are rarely seen. The 

 greater part of the year they keep to the sea-coast, where they 

 live on fish, especially flounders, and, as we are informed, on 

 ducks and rabbits. Mr. Moodie-Heddle tells us that they always 

 leave the stomach of any fish they eat. 



The same gentleman also says : "I have killed many Otters, 

 and had the young ones to about a year old. They are playful 

 and easily tamed, and quite as good-tempered as an average 

 young dog. They show more activity early in the morning, 

 and again in the evening, than at mid-day. The danger of 

 losing them in fostering is in their getting milk beginning to 

 turn sour; this with them, as with young seals, brings on 

 diarrhoea, which is usually fatal. I can usually find an Otter, 

 if about, and have had as many as thirty skins at one time." 



Mr. W. Harvey writes us from Sanday that a few years ago 

 an Otter " made her habitation and brought forth her young 

 within 150 yards of this (his) house, entering at the mouth of a 

 drain" (in lit. January 2, 1888). 



The skins of those Otters that frequent the sea and sea-shore 

 E 



