SWIMMERS 



that point to a still humbler diet of insects ; for 

 wherever there are otters, there are sure to be 

 numerous places to be found where they have 

 been clawing up the moss, pine-needles, or turf, 

 as the case may be, often working over several 

 rods in one night. Such spots are often spoken 

 of as playing grounds, and perhaps that is what 

 they really are, as they certainly often look as 

 if made in sport, particularly when, as is often 

 the case, the pine-needles, etc., have been piled in 

 little heaps, with dry and broken sticks showing 

 the marks of teeth scattered about. I have 

 known them to do this sort of thing at all 

 seasons, and even when there were several inches 

 of snow on the ground, but I think that they 

 are much more in the way of it in the spring 

 and fall than at any other time. 



The only genuine otter slides that I am 

 familiar with are collected within the space of 

 a mile, though almost every brook has its steep 

 banks here and there down which otters slide 



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