THE ZOOLOGIST 



No. 206.— February, 1894, 



THE OTTER, LUTRA VULGARIS. 

 By the Editor. 



(Continued from Zool. 1894, p. 10). 



It must not be supposed that the Common Otter, as has 

 been asserted, is found only in fresh water. Carew, in his 

 * Survey of Cornwall' (1602), was quite right when he wrote : — 



" The Otters, though one in kind, have yet two severall places of haunt ; 

 some keepe the cliffes, and there breede, and feede on sea-fish ; others live 

 in the fresh ryvers, and trade not so farre downe, who being less stored 

 with provision, make bold now and then to visite the land, and to breake 

 their fast upon the goodman's lambs,* or the good wives pultrie" (fol. 

 22 verso). 



Topsell was in error when giving an account of the Otter, in 

 his 'Historie of four-footed Beasts' (1607), he wrote that "the 

 Beaver goeth both to the salt waters and to the fresh, but the 

 Otter never to the salt," for the exact converse of this is the case. 



The late Jonathan Couch, of Polperro, was able to confirm 

 Carew's view of the Otter's haunts in Cornwall, and observed 

 that it will go out fishing a mile from the shore in summer and 

 during fine weather. In his ' Cornish Fauna,' commenced in 1838 

 (of which a second edition appeared in 1878), he remarked : — 



" By far the greatest portion of these creatures in Cornwall derive their 

 food from the sea, where they may be seen diving for fish even where the 



* We have never known an instance in which a lamb was proved to 

 have been killed by an Otter, and suspect that in any such reported case a 

 Fox must have been to blame. That the Otter will take ducks and other 

 fowl we have already shown. 



ZOOLOGIST, THIRD SERIES, VOL. XVIII. FEB. 1894. E 



