232 



THE BADGER AND WEASEL FAMILY. 



four incisors in the lower jaw, while in the 

 upper jaw there is the normal number, six. 

 This state of matters is found even in the 

 milk dentition. The canines are large, but 

 not so massive as in the common otter. The 



rest of the dentition has the same formula as 

 that of the polecat: three premolars above 

 and below, one true molar above, two below. 

 There would thus be in all 34 teeth if the 

 loss of a pair of incisors in the lower jaw did 



Fig. 124. — The Sea-otter [Euhydris vutriiia). page 231. 



not bring the number down to 32. But, as 

 regards their form, these teeth are very dif- 

 ferent from those of the martens; for the 

 cheek-teeth, carnassials as well as molars, are 

 all tubercled, with broad, flat crowns, and 

 have so completely lost the character of carni- 

 vorous teeth, that one who found them sepa- 

 rately would have no hesitation in ascribing 

 them to an omnivorous animal. 



It is easy to recognize in this structure the 

 result of a special kind of diet. The sea- 

 otter feeds, in fact, almost exclusively on 

 crustaceans (crabs, &c.) and mussels, whose 

 hard shells it crushes to pieces. Only ex- 

 ceptionally does it consume fish when they 

 fall in its way, never hunting after them. 



Since the sea-otter inhabits the parts of 

 the Arctic regions bordering on the Pacific 



Ocean, it spends almost the whole of its life 

 amid snow, ice, and ice-cold water. To this 

 coldness of its habitat it no doubt owes its 

 wonderfully beautiful brown, almost black fur, 

 with a silver-gray shimmer in old animals. 

 It is not so much a fur as a warm, flexible, 

 highly finished natural velvet, the down of 

 which is soft as eider-down, while the short 

 and thick bristly hairs keep out the water 

 completely. According to my own private 

 taste, the fur of the sea- otter is the finest in 

 the animal world, and far excels that of the 

 sable. In commerce, however, the skin of 

 the sable is more costly than that of the sea- 

 otter. 



Towards the end of last century the sea- 

 otter was still pretty abundant on the coasts 

 of the islands in Behring's Strait and those 



