56 ANIMAL LIFE UNDER WATER 



water's edge, then under the surface at increas- 

 ing depths until, finally, they rested on the 

 bottom, two feet below the surface. Still the 

 otter made no attempt to swim out to them, but 

 walked along the bottom until she reached the 

 fish. 



Though she refused to swim, her aversion to 

 water was now gone, and she spent a consider- 

 able amount of time paddling about or actually 

 walking on the bottom under the water. 



Now, when alarmed, she did not hide on 

 land, but went into the shallow water under a 

 rock, where she would crouch= down with only 

 her nostrils above the surface. A month passed, 

 and yet the otter showed no signs of swimming. 

 I then pushed her into three feet of water, and 

 she splashed and scrambled across to the other 

 side of the pond. A day or two after this a 

 friend and I surprised her in the evening; 

 alarmed at the sudden appearance of a stranger, 

 she plunged into the water with a tremendous 

 splash and swam away under the surface, leaving 

 a chain of bubbles in her wake. After this she 

 invariably dived for her food, and soon learnt to 

 enter the water as noiselessly as a wild otter. 



A glance at the photographs opposite pages 



