ii6 NETHER LOCHABER. 



and seizing it in his mouth, as you have seen a terrier deal with a 

 rat. At this moment we rushed from our concealment with a 

 shout, hoping to frighten the otter and gel hold of the fish, but 

 Monsieur Lutra was too quick for us. With the fish in his mouth 

 he plunged into the sea, and in a second had disappeared among 

 some boulders that would probably have afforded him a secure 

 asylum, even if we had a pack of otter hounds to aid in our 

 attempt at the dislodgment of a gentleman so cunning. 



With the common otter of our inland rivers and lakes we have 

 been more or less familiar since our school-boy days ; hut we 

 cannot recollect having ever seen a marine otter until this occa- 

 sion. Our naturalists seem to be very generally agreed that the 

 sea otter and that of our rivers and fresh-water lakes are one 

 and the same animal, — an opinion from which we are not at this 

 moment prepared to dissent, though the animal referred to above 

 seemed to us to be larger in size, blacker in colour, with more 

 prominent ears, and a bigger, bushier tail than any specimen, living 

 or. dead, that had hitherto come under our notice. Certain 

 peculiarities, however, of form and colouring in the individual are 

 frequently attributable to accidental circumstances. We remember 

 seeing a very fine dog otter many years ago, that its owner had 

 succeeded in rendering comparatively tame, and of some use in the 

 capture of fish for its master's table, as well as for its own sus- 

 tenance. The animal belonged to the innkeeper at Bridge of Tilt, 

 in Athole, and was usually kept chained in an empty stall in the 

 stable. It was very good-natured and docile, and evinced its 

 satisfaction on being stroked with the hand and patted by a 

 curious purring, sort of half whine half bark, altogether unlike the 

 utterance of any other animal with which we are acquainted. We 

 saw it presented with a dish of milk, which it readily lapped up, 

 using its tongue by way of spoon, as a dog does under similar 

 circumstances. With a collar round its neck, to which a long rope 



