THE BOOK OF THE OTTER 



to the mouth of a drain, the latter serving him as 



a safe retreat when danger threatens. In fact, 



during the warm weather, otters are found lying 



rough in all sorts of unexpected places, often to 



the great surprise of those who fondly imagine 



that the animals never leave the vicinity of water. 



Certain tree-roots and also rock holts have their 



entrances under water. In some of them there 



cannot be any great amount of ventilation. An 



otter cannot live without air, yet presumably it can 



exist with less than most creatures. Otter cubs are 



sometimes laid down in holts of the above nature, 



where there is no ventilation shaft, and we have 



heard the theory expressed that under such 



conditions practically all the fresh air that the cubs 



get is carried in to them in their mother's coat. 



In our experience, however, even though a holt 



has an underwater entrance, there are usually 



plenty of air passages coming down from above, 



at any rate, sufficient to supply a more than 



adequate amount of fresh air for breathing 



purposes. The advantage of an underwater 



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