THE QUEST OF THE OTTEK. 



131 



and charm of being principally confined in its geographical distri- 

 bution to our own shores of the Northwest. A truthful account of 

 the strange, vigilant life of the sea-otter, and the hardships and the 

 perils of its human hunters, would sur2)ass, if we could give it all, 

 the novelty and the interest of a most weird and attractive work of 

 fiction. 



The sea-otter is widely removed from close relationship to our 

 common land-otter. Unlike this latter example, it seldom visits the 

 shore, and then only when the weather is abnormally stormy at sea. 

 Instead of being a fish-eater, like Lutra canadensis, it feeds almost 

 wholly upon clams, crabs, mussels, and echinoderms, or " sea- 

 urchins," as might be inferred from its peculiar flat molars of den- 



The Kahlan or Sea-otter. 



tition. It is, when adult, an animal that will measure from three 

 and a half to four and a half feet in length from nose to root of its 

 short, stumpy tail. The general contour of the body is strongly 

 suggestive of the beaver, but the globose shape and savage expres- 

 sion of the creature "s head are peculiar to it alone. The small, 

 black, snaky eyes gleam with the most wild and vindictive light 

 when the owner is startled ; the skin lies over its body in loose 

 folds, so that Avhen taken hold of in lifting the carcass out of the 

 water, it is slack and draws up like the elastic hide on the nape 

 of a young dog. This j^elt, when removed in skinning, is cut only 

 at the posteriors, and the body is drawn forth, turning the skin 

 inside out, and in that shape it is partially stretched, air-dried, and 

 is so lengthened by this process that it gives the erroneous impres- 

 sion of having been taken from an animal the frame of which was 



