5i 



is now chief!}' to be found in the mountains and thinly 

 inhabited districts.' 



It still occurs hi the Catskills, and hi the Adirondack 

 region they are quite common. 



I have seen a portion of the lower jaw of a bear which was 

 excavated from a shell heap at Throgg's Neck, this County, 

 by Mr. M. R. Harrington of the American Museum. 



Lutra canadensis (Schreber). Northeastern Otter. 



Being an exceedingly shy animal and disappearing rapidly 

 from inhabited districts, the Otter, once so common in every 

 part of the county, is now probably extinct here. As evi- 

 dence of their former abundance, I quote at second hand 

 from Wassanaer's Historie van Europa Amsterdam, 1621-32 

 (Doc. Hist. 1 " 2 Vol. III. p. 37) a passage from the ' Description 

 and First Settlement of New Netherland ' : 'As regards the 

 prosperity of New Netherland, we learn from the arrival 

 of the ship whereof Jan May of Hoorn was skipper, that 

 everything there was hi good condition. * * * The fur or other 

 trade remains in the West India Company, others being for- 

 bidden to trade there. Rich beavers, otters, martins, and 

 foxes are found there. This cargo consists of five hundred 

 otter skins and fifteen hundred beavers. * * * The tribes are in 

 the habit of clothing themselves with them ; the fur or hair 

 inside, the smooth side without, which, however, they paint 

 so beautifully that, at a distance, it resembles lace.' 



Mr. Samuel Rowley informed me that when trout fishing 

 he saw an Otter on several occasions in 1858, on the Sprain 

 River hi the lower part of the county. The great numbers 

 of trout with which this stream abounded probably offered a 

 special inducement to the Otters to linger there. The Otter 

 is still found in the Highlands on the west bank of the 

 Hudson and I have recently received a specimen killed at 

 Poplopen Pond in that region, by Mr. John Redner. The 

 last date of which I have any knowledge of the capture of an 



