THE OTTER. 43 



opportunity of comparing it minutely with the Common Otter, or 

 of examining its osteology. Under these circumstances, it is not 

 surprising that he subsequently changed his views on the subject.* 



For choice, the Otter prefers a river which contains deep 

 pools alternating with shallows, and sandy or pebbly spits which 

 form convenient landing places ; while the hollow banks with 

 overhanging roots of trees afford secure places of retreat in time 

 of need. In some such hollow, under a bank, often extending in 

 for a considerable distance, the Otter has his " holt," from which 

 it is extremely difficult to dislodge him without the aid of terriers. 

 In parts of the country where the river, though holding fish, 

 offers no good abiding place, he will take up his quarters in some 

 brake, or bed of fern or gorse, in which he will lie concealed during 

 the day, travelling to and from the river at night, and at early 

 dawn. Indeed we have known several cases of Otters being 

 disturbed by a shooting party in a game-covert far away from 

 any water. 



In the Norfolk Broads, where Otters are not uncommon, and 

 where they find plenty of good food in the shape of pike and eels, 

 which abound there, they are obliged, from the nature of their 

 surroundings and the general absence of banks, boulders, and 

 overhanging hollow trees, to "lay up" in a very different 

 fashion, t 



Here their retreat by day is in the midst of some great reed- 

 bed, where they construct a nest, almost as a Coot does, with 

 broken reeds trodden and flattened down, paved with smaller 

 pieces which are bitten off, and lined with the softer and drier 

 panicles. 



These curious "nests," which are peculiar to the district 

 referred to, and are discovered by the reed-cutters, have been well 

 described by Mr. Southwell, who, as a naturalist resident in 



* See Thompson's Nat. Hist. Ireland, vol. iv. p. 6. 



f We learn from a note on " Otter Hunting in Norfolk and Suffolk," 

 contributed by Mr. M. Knight to the * Eastern Counties Collectanea,' that in 

 the 16th century the river Yare so abounded with Otters, that in 1557, in 

 some regulations made by the Norwich Assembly for the freshwater fishermen 

 between the tower at Conisford and Hardley Cross, it was provided that 

 " every man shall be bound to keep a dog to hunt the Otter, and to make a 

 general hunt twice or thrice in the year or more, at time or times convenient 

 upon pain to forfeit ten shillings." 



E 2 



