8 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Mr. H. S. Thomas, in his entertaining volume, * The Rod in 

 India,' 1873, p. 198, writes :— 



" The way the Otter has of taking a bite or two out of a fish and then 

 leaving it to catch a fresh one, and thus destroying many more fish than 

 he needs to devour, though against him in a wild state, is certainly a 

 peculiarity to be taken advantage of in a domesticated one; for a mere 

 snack should suffice him, and he would be game to hunt again at once. 

 The heads might very well be spared to the Otter if the rest be kept by 

 the master." 



An Otter has been known to seize a Trout which had been 

 hooked, and to break away with it, line and all.* 



In 'The Field' of Nov. 14th, 1885, Mr. R. B. Lee gave an 

 account of a tame Otter dying of distemper contracted from an 

 Otter-hound puppy with which it was being brought up. Com- 

 menting upon this in a subsequent number (Nov. 28th, 1885), 

 Mr. S. J. Hurley, of Killaloe, wrote : — 



" Some years ago a similar instance came under my observation. At 

 the time I refer to I had an adult female Otter, which by months of care 

 and kindness I had brought to the most perfect state of tameness. She 

 used to live in the house, follow me about like a dog, fish in the widest and 

 deepest part of the Shannon, stay out whole nights together with her wild 

 relations, and in the morning, when all the romping and fishing were over, 

 she would return home and scratch at the hall-door for admittance. To my 

 joy, I discovered that she was in young, and, lest any injury should befall 

 her, I resolved to keep her at home by night, and take her out to fish by 

 day. Just about this time I happened to have two brace of Irish setter 

 puppies down with distemper, and one day, while giving them a little 

 gentle exercise in a field opposite my house, the Otter went into their 

 kennel and lay down in the straw. In a few days she showed unmistakable 

 signs of distemper, being attacked in precisely the same way as the young 

 setters, and, in spite of all I could do, she died. I have had several other 

 tame Otters in my time, the greater number of which I obtained when 

 about a month old. Once I got a brace of young ones scarcely a fortnight 

 old, and, as they were very weak, I put them to a foster mother in the 

 shape of a cat, rearing kittens at the time. The plan succeeded, and I had 

 little trouble in taming them. In June last I procured a brace of baby 

 Otters about a month old, and in less than a week they became perfectly 

 tame, and used to follow me about the roads and fields. Before they were 

 two months old they would go into the river at the bridge here, and come 

 out again to a whistle, or call, like a water spaniel. 



* « The Field,' Oct. 16th, 1875. 



