1881.] MR. A. H. COCKS ON THE BREEDING OF THE OTTER. 249 



8. Note on the Breeding of the Otter. 

 By Alfred Heneage Cocks^ F.Z.S. 



[Received January 17, 1881.] 



A pair of Otters ia my possession have lately bred ; and as the 

 details differ somewhat from those in the case of the breedhig of this 

 species in the gardens of this Society, as recorded in the 'Pro- 

 ceedings' for 1847, I venture to give the following particulars. 



The female was sent to me in March 1873, from North Wales, as a 

 cub of about 2| lb. weight, with the permanent incisor teeth just 

 cut. From about the time she was full-grown she came in season 

 nearly every month ; but I never possessed an adult male until 

 October 1879, when I obtained one in Hamburg. Owing to the 

 female animal's extreme jealousy, I was not able to let them run 

 together until they had been duly introduced to each other through 

 the bars of adjoining cages for some weeks. The male soon after- 

 wards became very ill with an abscess at the root of one of his lower 

 praemolar teeth, the result apparently of some old injury ; and 

 although the female occasionally came in season, he took no notice 

 of her advances, until early on the morning of July 17th, when they 

 paired in the water, the female loudly chattering or whistling in a 

 peculiar way all the while. They remained thus for about an hour ; 

 and the sides of the tank being perpendicular, they were of necessity 

 swimming the whole time. Nothing further was noticed until the 

 morning of August 12, when they again paired in the water. They 

 remained together on this occasion for an hour and a half (about 

 6.30 to 8. A.M.). 



On October 2, the female being evidently heavy with young, I 

 separated the animals ; and (about 5.45) in the afternoon of the 12th 

 I heard young ones squeaking ; in all probability they had not been 

 born more than an hour or two when I discovered them. Reckoning 

 from August 12th (the date of the second pairing), the gestation was 

 therefore 61 days. We constantly heard the cubs squealing; but 

 nothing was seen of them until the 25th, when I looked at them, 

 and found them to be two in number, measuring about 8 inches in 

 length, including the tails, which were about 2 inches, or perhaps 

 rather more, in length, and which were held curved tight round on 

 the abdomen, as in a foetus. They were completely covered with a 

 fine silky coat, very different from the somewhat rough "puppy- 

 coat" they afterwards assume. They were still blind, with the eyes 

 very prominent. Within two hours after I had looked at them the 

 mother removed them to the other bed-box. From this time they 

 were frequently shifted by the mother from one box to the other, 

 often daily, the longest stay in one box being from October 28th to 

 November 15th. 



On November 1 7, while I was in the act of putting clean straw into 



the unoccupied bed-box, the Otter came out of the other box with one 



of the cubs in her mouth, and, swimming with it across the tank, came 



right up to the box I was filling, as if totally unconscious of my 



Proc.Zool.Soc— 1881, No. XVII. 17 



