THE OTTER AND SEAL 67 



hissing and snarling ; the family then lay up for 

 the day in a cleft among the rocks. 



Such are the happy nights and days of the 

 otter. True, a gamekeeper might have been 

 standing on the Roman bridge and put a charge 

 of shot into one of the cubs ; if so, it would have 

 been a painless death, and though the mother 

 and the other cubs would have been scared, they 

 would have hunted and killed their salmon all 

 the same. 



The seal of the otters might have been 

 noticed as they passed from the hover in the 

 willow tree to fish in the rocky pool, and a trap 

 placed on their track in the hope that on the 

 following night they would travel the same way. 

 This they certainly did, but the old otter had 

 already lost two toes in a gin, and it was very 

 unlikely that she would be caught tripping twice. 



What of the dog, the father of the family 

 whose wanderings we have just followed? When 

 he left the care of the cubs to the mother the 

 roving spirit took possession of him, and on the 

 second night he arrived at the very source of the 

 river. After killing a few spawning fish, he left 

 the shallow waters and travelled across country 

 to a large reservoir on the other side of the hills. 



