TRAPPING THE OTTER. 129 

days, making journeys and playing outside during and after 
mild snow storms, yet always getting safely under before it 
freezes, seeming to know just where he can push through to 
open water beneath the snow. 
Well along in the month of March, in the Aroostook valley, 
when we have frequent light falls of snow and occasional 
warm rains, the waters beneath the ice, even, take a change 
for the warmer, and the sun running higher giving us more 
warmth again, shining brightly down upon the ice with much 
power, just at the edge of the stream, which may be protected 
from the north by a high bank of snow, yet crusted over, but 
very friable, then and there (upon the still water streams) the 
first strip of open water glistening in the sunlight, shows 
itself. At night, as very often, comes another light fall of 
the soft, fleecy snow, and early in the warm sunny morning 
following, the glossy otter is here to be seen, for it is one of 
his favorite fishing chances, just below the deep snow 
drifted rips, which are almost ice bound upon the rocky, 
pebbly, sandy bottom. And the otter is quick to descry the 
first light of the spring shining down in his long winter home. 
He sits upon the bank with his head raised, attentively watch- 
ing the sunny opening, his black coat shining, in such striking 
contrast with the white snow all about hin, it is not strange 
he is called the bright and shining otter. He is watching the 
opening, knowing well this to be the place the trout love to 
winter in, near the warm, spring water which is constantly 
oozing in below the bank. They are here surely, and have 
been lying dormant for awhile, partly hybernating at times, 
lying just beneath the sediment on the bottom, with nose and 
eyes just pushed a little out to view; and as one of them, who 
has also felt the warmer change (but a few minutes too early, 
