MAMMALIA—OTTER 122 
shining biown as its back. It is a much larger animal, and has, in propor- 
tion, a shorter tail than the European one. In the winter season it fre- 
quents rapids and falls, to have the advantage of open water, and when its 
usual haunts are frozen over, it will travel to a great distance, through the 
snow, in search of a rapid which has resisted the severity of the weather. 
If it is seen, it throws itself on its belly, and slides through the snow for 
several yards, leaving a deep furrow behind it. This movement is made 
with great rapidity. When closely pressed, it will turn and defend itself 
with greai oosunacy. It inhabits the Mackenzie and other rivers nearly to 
the Arctic Sea, and the western parts of the United States. 
THE, SOUTH AMERICAN OTTERA 
Tue color of the South American otter is different from that of the 
European: the latter is much darker; and the male is still darker than the 
female, who generally gets brown while suckling her puppies; Abbé Ricardo 
says that they change coats. The skin is now more valuable than formerly, 
and is used for pistol covers, and foraging regimental caps are made of 
them. The skins of otters are also used for segar cases, and the Indians 
eat their flesh. In destroying fish, the otter rejects the head, and will not 
use it, although pressed by hunger. In Buenos Ayres there is one quite 
domesticated, which will invariably bring home what it gets in the river- 
but tame habits make it lazy and indolent; it is vicious during the breeding 
season, and is obliged to be chained. 
The sport of otter hunting in South America is thus described by a recent 
» traveller :—In the month of May, the parties assemble by previous arrange- 
ment, composed principally of the chief inhabitants and their relatives or 
clans, and visiters, male slaves, muleteers, &c, Having ascended the 
waterfalls, they encamp near those clear and transparent rivers in which 
otters abound. After the business of physicing the bloodhounds and a spe- 
cies of blueish cur without any hair, they make their hunting dispositions, 
and appoint their land and water captains to head ¢ach party; the duty of 
the latter is to stand in the prow of the ‘canoe, and cheer the dogs to the 
prey. The huntsman, in fact, is mostly an Indian, as those dogs will net 
hunt to any other tongue; what this is owing to, whether custom or saga- 
city, I know not, but it is certainly tne case; however, the young Spaniards 
and Creoles have latterly remedied this defect, and are now as well qualified 
to hunt a bloodhound in the Indian tongue as an Indian himself. Both 
parties having armed themselves with otter spears, barbed like harpoons, 
and with handles made of roagh, light wood, about ten feet in length, they 
cheer on the bloodhounds, who no sooner wind the prey tham they join 
1 Lautra Braziliensis, Gauri. 
17 
