To Mountain Tarn 



something to listen for, a voice of the stream, as 

 the piping of the golden plover is of the moor. 

 With something of the modulated whistle of the 

 buzzard or the kite, but far more soft, sweet, 

 and musical. Perhaps no sound in nature is 

 altogether so rare. 



Interested persons charge the otter with depre- 

 dations on their preserves, which they do not 

 take the trouble to interpret, and use trap and 

 gun. The number of such vandals is decreasing. 

 Some have tried to shield the culprit by saying 

 that he lives on frogs and other unconsidered 

 trifles. A keeper saw two young otters on a 

 stone waiting for breakfast. The mother was 

 fishing, and straightway brought from the burn a 

 good-sized trout, which her pups incontinently 

 fell to quarrelling about. Interfering, she gave 

 it to one of them, and once more entering the 

 burn soon had a large trout for the other. Thus 

 fish diet begins very early in life. What mean 

 the salmon lying along the banks of streams or 

 shores of lochs with the bite out of the shoulder, 

 which seems to be all that is taken when food is 

 abundant ? Natives who know the habits of the 

 animal are abroad in the morning to gather the 

 remnants of the night feast for their own table. 



On the banks of Sutherland streams are found 

 complete skins of salmon, as though scooped out 

 with a knife, probably where the otter returned 

 to a second feast, or had a family of hungry pups 



