XII HABITS OF THE OTTER it? 



Otters are very affectionate animals. If you shoot an old 

 one who has young in the vicinity, they very soon appear search- 

 ing anxiously for their mother ; and if you kill the young ones, 

 the parent will come boldly to the surface, and hover about the 

 place till she is killed herself. When a pair of otters frequent 

 a place, if one is killed, the other will hunt for its lost mate in 

 the most persevering manner. If one is caught in a trap, the 

 other remains all night near her, running round and round, in 

 vain trying to get her away. Though usually so noiseless and 

 quiet, on these occasions they make a great hubbub, blowing 

 and snorting almost like a swimming horse. 



Sometimes they lie all day on some small island or bank 

 covered with rushes, ready to slip down into the water on the 

 approach of danger. I was one day in August looking for 

 young wild ducks in a swamp covered with rushes and grass, 

 when my dog, who was running and splashing through the 

 shallow water, suddenly stood still, sometimes whining as if 

 caught in a trap, and then biting furiously at something in the 

 water. I could not imagine what had happened to him, and 

 he either would not or could not come to me when called, so 

 I waded over to see what was the matter. I found a large otter 

 firmly holding on by his powerful jaws to the dog's shoulder, 

 and had he not had a good covering of curly hair, I believe 

 the brute would have broken his leg, so severe was the bite : 

 even when I came up, the otter seemed very little inclined 

 to let go ; but at last did so, and I shot him as he splashed 

 away. 



When one of these animals is surprised in an open place, 

 he will for some time trust to being concealed, remaining flat 

 on the ground, with his sharp little eyes, which are placed very 

 high on the head, intently fixed on you. Like all other wild 

 animals, he has an instinctive knowledge of how long he is un- 

 perceived, for the moment he sees that your eye is on him, he 

 darts off, but not till then. During the winter many of the 

 river and lake otters take to the coast,^ travelling a long way for 



^ The otter is plentiful in some localities in the Hebrides, frequenting the sea-shore for 

 the most part, until the salmon and sea trout begin to "run " in July, when it follows 

 them up the streams, and frequents the fresh-water lochs. A forester in Harris showed 

 me a small rock in Loch Resort where he once killed two at one shot. A shepherd in 

 North Uist,. on his own beat alone,, had shot over seventy otters during a residence of 

 twenty-fiveyears. — " On the Mammalia of the Outer Hebrides," by J. Harvie-Brown, F.Z.S, , 

 Proceedings of the Nat. Hist. Soc. of Glasgow, agth April 1879, p. 93. 



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