132 WILD NEIGHBORS CHAP. 
degree, and everything had been done to make it 
comfortable. Was this death due to nervous 
alarm? There seems no other explanation of it. 
The deer, wild-cat, bear, raccoon, mink, weasei, 
skunk, muskrat, porcupine, beaver (but how rare 
is the sight of a living beaver, even after one has 
found its tenanted dams!) and the great company 
of squirrels, gophers, and the like, we know pretty 
well, and feel their presence in our woods, waters, 
and prairies; but who has seen, or ever hopes to 
see, an otter, although these fine animals still se- 
crete themselves in all parts of the Union? Tho- 
reau relates that when he spoke of this animal to 
the oldest doctor in Concord, who should be, he 
thought, er officio, a naturalist, the worthy physi- 
cian was greatly surprised at the suggestion that 
it lived in Massachusetts, although he recalled 
that the Pilgrims sent home a great number of 
otter skins, among other peltries, in the first ship 
that returned to England. Then Thoreau pro- 
ceeded to inform him of what he had seen that 
day,—the 6th of December, 1856, at 2 p.m., as 
recorded in his diary: 
“To Hubbard’s Bridge and Holden Swamp, 
and up river on ice. ... Just this side of Bittern 
Cliff, I see the very remarkable track of an otter, 
made undoubtedly December 3d, when the snow- 
ice was mere slush. It had come up through a 
hole (now black ice) by the stem of a button-bush, 
and apparently pushed its way through the slush, 
