46 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



aud rocked into a sort of dreamy repose, when I was roused by a flash in 

 the upper pool, a ripple on its surface, and then a running swirl, and some- 

 thing that leaped, and plunged, and disappeared. * * * * Presently 

 I saw two dark objects bobbing like ducks down the rapid between the two 

 pools, but immediately as they came near distinguished the round, staring, 

 goggle-eyed heads of two Otters, floating one after the other, their legs 

 spread out like Flying Squirrels, and steering with their tails, the tips of 

 which showed above the water like the rudder of an Elbe scuite. Down 

 they came as flat as floatiug skins upon the water, but their round, short 

 heads and black eyes constantly in motion, examining with eager vigilance 

 every neuk and rock which they passed. I looked down into the pool below 

 me — it was clear as amber — and behind a large boulder of granite in about 

 eight feet of water I saw three salmon — a large one lying just at the back 

 of the stone and two smaller holding against the stream in the same line. 

 They were sluggish and sleepy in the sunshine, without any motion except 

 the gentle sculling of their tails. 



" The Otters w T ere steering down the pool, bobbing and flirting the 

 water with their snouts, and now and then ducking their heads till they came 

 over the stone. In an instant, like a flash of light, the fish were gone, and 

 where the Otters had just floated there was nothing but two undulating 

 rings upon the glossy surface. In the next instant there was a rush and 

 swirl in the deep, under the rock on the west side, and a long shooting line 

 going down to the rapid, like the ridge which appears above the back fin 

 of a fish in motion. Near the tail of the pool there was another rush and 

 turn, and two long lines of bubbles showed that the Otters were returning. 

 Immediately afterwards the large salmon came out of the water with a 

 spring of more than two yards, and just as he returned, the Otter struck 

 him behind the gills and they disappeared together, leaving a star of 

 bright scales upon the surface. * * * * The skill with which they 

 pursued their game was like that of well-trained greyhounds in a course. 

 Whenever they came to the throat of the pool they pressed the fish hard 

 to make him double into the clear water, and one was always vigilant to 

 make him rise or turn, the increased effort of which exhausted his strength. 

 With equal sagacity, they worked him at the tail of the pool to prevent 

 him descending the rapid. * * * # With this race the fish began 

 to tire, and the Otters continued to press him, until at length one of them 

 having fixed him by the shoulder-fin, he was dragged up the bank, apparently 

 quite dead." 



After some further details, which are too long to be here 

 quoted, the writer adds, in the spirit of a true naturalist : — 



11 1 could easily have shot them during their hunt, and more surely 

 when trailing the fish up the bank, for they were not thirty paces distant, 



