From Fox's Earth 



an ugly quarter of an hour. A master of the 

 hunt has seen hounds go under in the otter's 

 jaws, and reach the surface half drowned and 

 bleeding. One never came up. The stern 

 combatants were locked in a death knot at the 

 bottom. 



With these advantages, the otter maintains its 

 numbers. If not more common, it is because of 

 some law of nature, hidden from our eyes, which 

 places a limit on the increase of wild animals. 

 It breeds in security. The female retires into a 

 holt, often opening under water. Some obscurity 

 rests upon the breeding. There seems to be no 

 special season. By the Fifeehire Eden, a pup 

 was found dead in the July of this year. In 

 September one was brought by the hounds from 

 a hole in the banks of the Liddle. Another was 

 left, giving a litter of two. A huntsman tells me 

 he never knew more than three. 



Save for his blow after a long dive, the otter is 

 in the main a silent animal. A master had to 

 pause a moment when I asked if he ever knew 

 one make a sound, and then he thought he had 

 heard a whistle in the evening. Perhaps he is 

 not often abroad after dark, as the hunt is by day. 

 I have met no night angler who can recall having 

 heard it. Possibly because of the absorption in 

 the one pursuit, or that it was mistaken for some 

 night bird. Yet it calls, it may be to its mate, or 

 to summon its young, or both. And its call is 



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