THE OTTEB. 383 



weight was 50 lbs., and the length, from nose to tip of tail, 60 in.* 

 If this weight was actually ascertained and not merely estimated, 

 we may well accept Pennant's statement as to the Lea Otter, 

 which is said to have weighed 40 lbs. The weight of an Otter 

 relative to its length must depend very much on its condition. 



Otters, as a rule, are not liable to much variation in the colour 

 of their fur, which is very thick, close, and shining. This is 

 generally of a rich dark umber-brown, darkest on the back 

 (looking almost black when wet), lighter on the sides, and palest 

 underneath; in this respect resembling our common Water Vole. 

 Nevertheless, white, cream-coloured, and even spotted varieties 

 have been met with and recorded at rare intervals. 



In Mr. Henry Evans's collection at Small Isles there is a pure 

 white Otter, which was killed at Jura, and another is preserved 

 at Kildalton House, Islay.t In the Belfast Museum also there 

 is a white Otter, which was killed in Islay in April, 18504 



More than thirty years ago ('Field,' May 17th, 1862) two 

 cream-coloured Otters, killed in the Kiver Aln, were in the 

 possession of Mr. Grey, of East Bolton ; and about the same 

 time there was preserved, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, a stuffed speci- 

 men, which was " spotted all over the body with white ticks, 

 precisely similar to some pointer-dogs." 



In 'The Zoologist' for 1869 (p. 1926), Mr. T. E. Gunn 

 reported the capture near Yarmouth, in March of that year, of an 

 old female Otter and two young ones about a fortnight old. The 

 coats of the latter presented two distinct shades of colour, one 

 being of a very pale brown, and the other very dark, nearly as 

 dark as the adult ; the mother was slightly piebald, having a few 

 small patches of white on the crown of the head and neck. 



In the ' Fishing Gazette ' of June 24th, 1893, Mr. S. J. Hurley, 

 of Killaloe, reported that a perfectly white Otter had been recently 

 seen in the Shannon, and that some years previously he had seen 

 one in the same locality with a white circle round its neck. A 



* ■ Land and Water,' vol. ii. p. 51. 



f Harvie Brown and Buckley, ' Fauna of Argyll,' 1892, p. 17. 



J When visiting Paris, in 1889, on the occasion of the last Exhibition 

 there, we saw in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes a white Otter 

 which had been sent from China, and we had previously noted another, 

 which was exhibited in 1887 in the Loan Collection of Hunting Trophies in 

 the American Exhibition in London, 



