CHAP. VI. | The Otter. 117 
ed away to recover his animal heat and resume his explora- 
tions. 
Speaking of the otter as a night-roamer, Edward ob- 
serves: “TI am not aware who first burlesqued the otter as 
an amphibious animal. He must have known very little 
of the animal’s true habits, and nothing at all of its ana- 
tomical structure. The error thus promulgated seems to 
have taken deep root. That the otter is aquatic in habits, 
is well known. He goes into the water to fish, but he is 
forced to come up again to breathe. In fact, a very small 
portion of the otter’s life is spent in the water. There are 
many birds that are far more aquatic than the otter. There 
are some, indeed, that never leave the water night nor day ; 
yet no one calls them amphibious birds. I have seen the 
otter, in his free, unfettered, and unmolested condition, both 
in the sea and the river, go into the water, and disappear 
many a time, and I have often watched for his re-appear- 
ance. The longest time that he remained under water was 
from three to four minutes; the usual time was from two 
to three minutes. I have also watched numbers of water 
birds, who have also to descend for their food, and I must 
say that the greater number of them exceed the otter in the 
time that they remain below water. Some of them remain 
double the time. I once saw a great northern diver re- 
main below water more than nine minutes. A porpoise 
that I once watched remained down about ten minutes; 
and so on with other sea-birds and animals.” 
Many of these night-roaming animals—such as the weasel, 
rat, badger, otter, and polecat—are seen during the day; but 
these may. only be regarded as stray individuals, their prin- 
cipal feeding-time being at night. The rat may forage in 
the day-time, and the weasel is sometimes to be seen hunt- 
ing when the sun is high. But there was one circumstance 
in connection with the manners and habits of these creat- 
ures which surprised Edward not a little, which was, that al- 
though he very seldom saw any of them in the evening, or 
