118 THE OTTER. 



caves, in which they breed, while seafaring wild- 

 duck of different species are not uncommonly met 

 with. The sport, combined with the grandeur of 

 the scenery, the wholesome air and exercise, and 

 the element of risk, makes a day of this kind 

 thoroughly worth while. While enjoying a day's 

 otter-hunting by the river as much as any one, 

 I must say that my sympathies are too much with 

 the otter on such occasions, and the nature of the 

 sport too cut-and-dried for it to compare for real 

 pleasure with the Bohemian element of an im- 

 promptu shore hunt. (See Wild Sports and 

 Natural History of the Highlands, by Charles 

 St John.) 



HABITS ON LAND. 



To deal further with the otter's recognised 

 migrating routes, the following account, apart from 

 numerous passing observations, goes in support of 

 what has been said. During one extraordinarily 

 severe cold snap, when even the most rapidly 

 flowing mountain-brooks were festooned and in 

 places partially blocked by fantastic ice-formations, 

 a moorland boy located the tracks of an otter fol- 

 lowing the course of a small mountain-brook in 

 the very wildest of regions at an altitude of 2000 

 feet or more above sea-level. The brook emptied 

 into a spacious tarn or loch, which, again, was 

 drained by a small tributary of the Wharfe. The 

 otter had evidently come, then, from the Wharfe, 

 followed the tributary to the tarn, and, fishing there 

 for a time, was now making his way up the brook 

 still farther into the heart of this No-Man's-Land. 



There was a good tracking snow on the ground, 

 and it was interesting to note the animal's ma- 

 noeuvres. The brook was all but ice-bound, every 



