126 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 
dead.” We are indebted to Mr. Tregarthen for 
enabling us to combine in a living whole sundry 
personal glimpses we have had of this attractive 
but inscrutable creature’s life, and for giving us in 
answer to our question regarding its survival these 
hints, that in addition to great natural gifts the 
otter has the advantage of a most solicitous mother- 
ing, of a careful education resulting in a resource- 
fulness that can hardly be baffled, and of a roving 
spirit which becomes expressed in an unrivaled 
elusiveness. Britain will indeed be the poorer if 
man’s ruthlessness prove eventually too much for a 
fascinating creature whose grip has held for so long. 
