Apbil 2, 1909] 



SCIENCE 



553 



a half to the eastward of Fairhaven Bay, as- 

 sured me, in the summer of 1889, that otters 

 were then frequenting a meadow near his 

 house. He thought there were at least two or 

 three of them and he feared they were prey- 

 ing on some trout that he had put in a series 

 of connecting ditches filled with clear, cold 

 water. I heard the following year that de- 

 spite his repeated attempts to shoot and trap 

 them, they finally departed unharmed, after 

 haunting the meadow for several months and 

 eating the last of his trout. As far as I am 

 aware there is no later instance known of the 

 occurreu'ce of the otter in the region about 

 Fairhaven Bay, but if it be still found in 

 Charles River it is likely to reappear at any 

 time in the Sudbury, for these streams ap- 

 proach one another closely in several places. 



For the Charles I have a manuscript record 

 pertaining to a time less recent than that when 

 Dr. Allen's observation was made, yet not so 

 very long ago. It is on the authority of Mr. 

 Shelley W. Denton, who, in February, 1894, 

 obtained definite evidence that an otter had 

 been killed, about the fifth of that month, in 

 South Natick. It appeared early one cold 

 morning on the ice at an air hole and fell a 

 victim to a well-aimed shot fired by a man 

 named Frank Carroll from the window of a 

 stable that stood on the edge of the river not 

 far from the village. 



In the towns of Keadville and Canton, only 

 ten or a dozen miles to the southward of Bos- 

 ton, otters were not uncommon less than 

 twenty years ago. They were seen occasion- 

 ally in the Neponset Eiver and my friend Mr. 

 Koland Hayward often found their tracks on 

 the banks of certain of its tributary brooks 

 which he was accustomed to fish for trout. 

 Most of his fellow fishermen, the otters, seem 

 to have eluded the local hunters and trappers, 

 but one was shot in Ponkopog Pond on March 

 30, 1893, by the Messrs. Charles W. and J. H, 

 Bowles. It came swimming in from the mid- 

 dle of the pond directly towards the brush 

 stand on the shore, where they were lying 

 in wait for ducks. On reaching their little 

 flock of wooden decoys it seized one of these 

 in its teeth, when Mr. J. H. Bowles fired, kill- 

 ing it almost instantly. He or his brother 



skinned and mounted it. The specimen now 

 forms one of the most attractive wall orna- 

 ments of my private museum, for they were 

 kind enough to give it to me when, a few 

 years later, they went to the Pacific coast. It 

 is an exceptionally large and handsome animal, 

 in dark, richly colored pelage. Mr. F. B. 

 McKechnie, who now lives in the house at 

 Ponkopog formerly occupied by the Bowles 

 family, tells me that he has seen no otter 

 signs of late in the Neponsett Eiver valley 

 although he has heard that two otters were 

 trapped in the autumn of 1907 in the Nepon- 

 sett meadows, by Mr. Eogers. He further in- 

 forms me that Mr. Arthur Smith saw the 

 track of an otter near Blue Hill about three 

 years ago. 



If, as seems not improbable, the recent 

 presence of otters in some numbers in the 

 lower portions of the ISTeponsett Eiver valley 

 has been d^ie — at least in part — to immigra- 

 tion from regions somewhat more remote, the 

 influx is likely to have come, not from the 

 north, but from the south. For it is neither 

 known' to me nor probable that these animals 

 have occurred plentifully of late anywhere im- 

 mediately to the northward, whereas at no great 

 distance to the southward, throughout most of 

 the wooded parts of Cape Cod, they are — or 

 have been recently — ^much more numerously 

 represented than I have ever found them to 

 be elsewhere in New England, even about the 

 lakes and rivers of northern Maine and New 

 Hampshire. Nor is this surprising, in view 

 of the fact that very much of the Cape re- 

 mains unsettled and, indeed, essentially a 

 primitive wilderness, which, although some- 

 what over supplied with keen and successful 

 hunters of deer, foxes, game birds and water- 

 fowl, has almost wholly lacked expert native 

 trappers because of the general scarcity or 

 absence, for half a century or more, of fur- 

 bearing animals of any considerable value. 

 It has, too, among other attractions, innumer- 

 able ponds and streams, such as the otter 

 loves to frequent; for most of these are filled 

 to the brim at every season with clear spark- 

 ling water and bordered by dense woods and 

 thickets, or fringed by reeds or by cat-tail 

 flags, while nearly all abound with fish of 



