Chapt. xv. The feeding habits of the Otter. 213 



view, I have never seen it use its tail in swimming; the 

 tail trailed idly behind, while the otter swam with its 

 feet only. I can understand the horizontal compression 

 of the tail being very useful and necessary to the animal 

 in diving, as well as in rapidly coming to the surface. 

 In a long continued dive, when giving chase to a fish, how 

 could the otter regulate the depth of its dive sufficiently 

 rapidly, without its horizontally flattened tail. 



The otter always comes to the shore or a rock to eat 

 its prey, or to shallow water in which it can stand, and 

 sits up and looks about it like a dog, and when eating, 

 holds the fish down with its sharply clawed feet just as 

 a dog holds a bone on land, and growls over it in some- 

 what the same fashion; but when standing in shallow 

 water it holds the fish up in air between its two fore 

 paws, and every wild otter that I have noticed always 

 commenced eating the fish by the tail, like a wise gene- 

 ral cutting off the retreat. When wishing to travel with 

 its capture however it always retakes it in its mouth, 

 so as to have the use of the fore paws for swimming. 

 When lapping milk however it is much more like a 

 dainty cat, and it spits much like a cat. How neatly 

 it picks up or catches a fleeing frog! Active minded 

 though it be, and taking quick and long leaps, and 

 more slippery than any cricket ball, the frog is fielded 

 in the best style of "Lord's" and is "well held" too, and 

 no mistake. And then what a quantity of them an otter 

 eats. My babes, which have grown while this Chapter 

 has been with the printer, require a regular commissariat 



