4 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



and I'll try if I can make her tame, as I know an ingenious 

 gentleman in Leicestershire, Mr. Nicholas Seagrave, has done ; 

 who hath not only made her tame, but to catch fish, and do many 

 other things at pleasure." 



Goldsmith mentions an Otter which would plunge into a pond 

 at word of command, and driving the fish up into a corner, would 

 seize upon one of the largest and bring it to land. Bewick, 

 Shaw, Daniel, Macgillivray, and Bishop Heber (in his ' Indian 

 Journal'),* record instances of the animal's docility in this way ; 

 and McDiarmid, in his ' Sketches from Nature,' gives an account 

 of several tame Otters, one of which, belonging to a poor widow, 

 kept her well supplied with fish from the river Urr and its 

 tributary streams. One kept at Corsbie House, Wigtonshire, 

 he says, evinced a great fondness for gooseberries; and another 

 belonging to Mr. Monteith, of Carstairs, though very tame, would 

 steal away at night to fish by moonlight, returning to his kennel 

 in the morning. A cobbler at Rothbury, on the Coquet, had a 

 tame Otter, which was allowed its liberty, and would go off to fish 

 and return to the house, bringing a Trout, after helping himself. 

 He lived about five years, and was then accidentally killed in a 

 gale of wind by a door slamming against him and crushing him. 



Our old friend, Mr. F. H. Salvin, of Whitmoor House, near 

 Guildford, has reared and tamed many young Otters, and has 

 proved them to be most delightful pets. He writes : — 



" My reason for saying that Otters do more good than harm is that 

 they kill those fish which destroy spawn and young fry, and their presence 

 really indicates an increase of the best fish, such as Trout, Grayling, and 

 Salmon." 



As regards the power of the Salmon in ordinary water to 

 escape the Otter by superior swimming, it is certain, whatever the 

 theory upon the matter may be, that the Otter does constantly 

 take Salmon in all sorts of water, as any angler of experience can 

 testify. We have heard of a case in which an Otter was seen in 



* Azara gives an account of a South American Otter, Lutra braziliensis, 

 which answered to its name, and followed its owner like a dog. See also 

 Jerdon's account of the Indian Otter, Lutra nair, in his 'Mammals of 

 India,' and Swinhoe on the habits of a tame Otter, Lutra Swiiilwei, Gray, 

 which was captured on the island of Gawkang, near Amoy. Proc. Zool. Soc. 

 1870, p. 625, 



