XVI 
THE SURVIVAL OF THE OTTER 
HE otter is so shy a creature that few British 
naturalists have had more than tantalizing 
glimpses of its everyday (or rather, everynight) 
life, wherewith to supplement what they know of 
the animal in zoological gardens, and what they 
have gathered from a study of its structure—the 
finely-molded skull, for instance. This gap in our 
knowledge was filled a few years ago by Mr. J. C. 
Tregarthen’s Life Story of the Otter.* The author’s 
observational patience and sympathy, shown also 
in his biographies of fox and hare, have enabled 
him to disclose the vie intine of an animal which is, 
to say the least, very unapproachable. We hope 
that our appreciation, at once of the beast and the 
book, will serve to introduce Mr. Tregarthen’s 
delightful studies in Natural History to some who 
have not had the pleasure of knowing them. The 
question with which we are especially concerned is 
how the otter manages to hold its own in Britain, 
where so many of its Order, such as badger and 
wild cat, polecat and marten, have become very 
few and far between. It is not enough to refer to 
the otter’s cerebral endowments, its keen senses of 
* Murray, London, 1915, 
129 
