OF SELBORNE. 97 



water, and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a 

 foot, much less to plunge into that element. 



THE OTTER. 



Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious. Such is 

 the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving that 

 it makes great havoc among the inhabitants of the waters. 

 Not supposing that we had any of those beasts in our 

 shallow brooks, I was much pleas 3d to see a male otter 

 brought to me, weighing twenty- one pounds, that had 

 been shot on the bank of our stream below the Priory, 

 where the rivulot divides the parish of Selborne from 

 Harteley Wood. 1 



1 It is generally supposed that otters live exclusively on fish, but 

 such is not invariably the case. They are carnivorous as well as 

 piscivorous, and have been known to eat ducks and teal, and, while in 

 confinement, young pigeons. Frogs form part of their bill of fare, and 

 even mussels at times furnish food to these animals. Numbers of 

 mussel-shells have been found in an otter's haunt, with the ends bitten 

 off, and evident marks of teeth upon the broken fragments, the position 

 of the shells indicating that the otter, after having crunched off one 

 end, had sucked or scooped out the mollusc, in much the same way 

 as those who are partial to shrimps dispose of that esculent crus- 

 tacean. ED. 



