192 Nil mortalibus arduum est. Chapt. xv. 



The otter (Lutra nair*) is the nirnai or water-dog of 

 the Dravidian languages of Southern India, the panika- 

 kutha or water-dog again of Hindustani; and the different 

 names applied to it in Sanscrit mean water-cat, water-rat 

 and water-animal (*udrah) from which last our word otter 

 is probably derived. And why should he not be utilized 

 as a water-dog, instead of being exterminated before his 

 uses are discovered? "Why should he not be domesticated 

 and bred for the chase in the water, just as the wild dog 

 has been on land? 



The wild dog is very destructive to game, and so is 

 the otter to fish, it being estimated in England that each 

 otter destroys a ton of fish a year. But the domesticat- 

 ed dog under man's control is very useful to his master, 

 and the following extracts will show that the otter can be 

 readily domesticated, much more readily I imagine than 

 the wild dog, and affords both sport and business-like 

 profit to his master. If the same attention were paid to 

 the breeding and training of otters as has been paid to 

 dogs, there seems no reason why similar marked results 

 should not be obtained in varying size and power ; at any 

 rate you can very soon get a retriever otter, and that is 

 about all that is wanted. I have now as I write three 

 little otter pups deligently sucking away at a pariah bitch, 

 though they made difficulties at first on the score of the 

 dog's teats being not so fine as an otter's nipple. When 



* The common English otter is Lutra vulgaris. For the Sanscrit 

 my authority is A. C. Burnell Esq. of the Madras Civil Service, whose 

 scholarly attainments are well known. 



