MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 157 



1823. Lutra canadensis Sabine, Franklin's Narrative, Journal to Polar Sea, 



P- 653- 



Type locality. — Eastern Canada. 



Faunal distribution. — Hudsonian, Canadian and transition zones ; Hudson 

 Bay and Atlantic Ocean to the Cascade Mountains. 



Distribution in Pa. and N. J. — The more typical Canadian form of otter 

 may be said to be found only in the water courses and lakes of the higher 

 mountains of the two states, blending as we reach tide-water into the south- 

 ern form lataxina, next considered. At one time evenly and numerously 

 distributed, it has become rare almost everjrwhere, and in many places is 

 only known as an occasional straggler from more favored localities. 



Records in Pa. and N. J. — On consulting my records from about loo 

 different localities in all parts of the two states it seems superfluous to enu- 

 merate them in order. The otter, while supposed to be absent from a great 

 many localities, and never seen even by ordinary hunters and woodsmen, 

 often exists in the most thickly populated districts, escaping observation on 

 account of its aquatic and nocturnal habits and its extreme wariness. Indeed 

 it is now more abundant in the unpolluted tidewater streams of our country 

 in the immediate vicinity of towns and villages than in some of the wilds of 

 the mountains. This is owing to the destruction of fish and the otherwise 

 noxious condition of our streams in many extensive mountain tracts due to 

 the drainage from tanneries, mines, oil wells, chemical workC factories and 

 foundries. In the unpolluted glacial lakes of northern Pa. and N. J. their 

 numbers are greater. The tidewater creeks of Pa. and N. J., both maritime 

 and inland, are never without some of these aquatic rovers. The cedar 

 swamps and inland dams of N. J. form a secure and uncontaminated 

 rendezvous for otters. In Chester, Delaware, Philadelphia and Bucks 

 counties of Pa., and more especially in Cumberland, Salem, Gloucester, 

 Camden, Burlington and Mercer of N. J., the affluents of the Delaware River 

 probably harbor more otters than in any other area of equal size in the two 

 states. Owing to the decline of expert trappers, they are rarely discovered 

 and more seldom captured, though their signs may be discovered along these 

 waters at any time by one conversant with them. 



Habits, etc. — Owing to their sociability, aquatic life, extreme agility and 

 playfulness and their simple diet of fish, in whose pursuit they exhibit so much 

 add ress and amazing skill, without the bloodthirsty and wanton destructive- 

 ness of other carnivorous species, the habits of the otter are of especial inter- 

 est. The principal food of the otter is fish, they being able to chase and 

 capture with comparative ease such nimble species as the trout, salmon and 

 picke rel, the latter species forming a large part of its diet in the lakes of the 

 north and the waters of the N. J. cedar swamps. It also devours more slugr 

 gish species in maritime waters, as the sucker, mullet and perch. The cray. 



