

XXXIL MAMMALS IN THE WATER 



THE Zoo otters have conformed to the universal 

 tendency to extend the range of diet by eating 

 ship-biscuit as well as fish. They make believe that 

 it is fish all the time, biting the biscuit into fragments, 

 then pushing these into the water with their noses, 

 chasing them and catching them, and, after the biscuit 

 is well saturated, eating it on the bank. Incidentally, 

 this shows how very prettily an otter eats its meals. It 

 lies flat down, and holds the * fish ' neatly between its 

 hands, ' thumbs upwards/ the hands being quite flat, 

 like the two ends of a book-slide. The quickness and 

 handiness of the otter in the water is most surprising, 

 considering the very slight difference in general form 

 between it and allied non-amphibious mammals ; there 

 is practically nothing which a salmon or trout can do 

 which the otter cannot beat, except the salmon's leap up 

 a weir. It can even imitate that astonishing * shoot ' by 

 which a trout goes off" from its feeding-place like an 

 arrow to the bank or weeds. It can also climb a 



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