GILPIN — ON NOVA SCOTIAN MAMMA3:^. tf 



search of open water. If the snow is deep and no cfust, owing 

 to the shortness of his legs, and long low tail, he leaves one 

 uuiutemipted trail behind him. I have tracked these for miles, 

 crossed and recrossed by the tracks of grouse, hares, squirrels, 

 shrewd, moose, lynxes and bears. The stern solitude of our 

 short Arctic day in the forest is greatly enhanced by the marks 

 of a populous gathering over night. Like Baal's priests, they 

 have all left their footprints behind them. The hunter loves 

 them not — a clear track without a cross show^s the beast a few 

 miles ahead. In the lettered page that nature has written on 

 the snow for his guidance, he reads a day, two da^'s, or a week 

 ago, he passed along : memories of these sylvan readings how 

 sweet you are! The otters that I have see rx were with broad 

 flat heads, short ears, scarce appearing above the fur, flattened 

 like an angry cat, a broad naked muzzle, thick moustache and 

 round large upper lip, the eye cruel, but inexpressive, light in 

 colour, and too near the nose for beauty ; the legs very short and 

 strong, the whole body round, and the tail long and compressed, 

 but joined to the body by a very broad base. In repose they 

 were fond of lying on their bellies, with the hind legs turned 

 up behiixl, as a duck's foot in swimming. They held their fish 

 in their fore paws, and devoured it by a series of snarling bites. 

 I have no language to express their tortuous, swift and graceful 

 glides in and out the water, and over the giouud. They 

 resembled young furred anacondas, not as we see them half 

 alive in our shows, but stimulated by a glorious African sun and 

 burning desert sand. They are said to be fond of sliding down 

 the hills, (moist clay in summer, snowed in winter,) and to 

 continue it for hours. By the best authorities, our otter is 

 specifically distinct from L. Vulgaris, or the European otter, 

 the skull of ours is much broader and larger, and the naked 

 muzzle double the size. 



Mephitis Mephitica, (Baird, from Shaw.) Y 



Mephitis Americana, (Richardson, Sabine, DeKay,) Skunk. > 

 Mephitis Ohinga^ (Tiedman, Wagner, Audubon.) ) 



Of the some dozens of skins of this late arrival among our 

 fauna, which I have examined, they have all be^n of that 



