OF SELBOBNE, 
97 
water, and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a 
foot, much, less to plunge into that element. 
THE OTTKR. 
Quadrupeds that prey on fish are amphibious. Such is 
the otter, which by nature is so well formed for diving that 
it makes great havoc among the inhabitants of the waters. 
Not supposing that we had any of those beasts in our 
shallow brooks, I was much pleased to see a male otter 
brought to me, weighing twenty-one pounds, that had 
been shot on the bank of our stream below the Priory, 
where the rivulet divides the parish of Selborne from 
Harteley Wood.^ 
^ It is generally supposed tliat otters live exclusively on fish, but 
sncli is not invariably the case. They are carnivorous as well as 
j>iscivoro .o, and have been known to eat ducks and teal, and, while in 
confinement, young pigeons. Frogs form part of their bill of fare, and 
even mussels at times furnish food to these animals. Numbers of 
mussel-shells have been found in an otter's haunt, with the ends bitten 
off, and evident marks of teeth upon the broken fragments, the position 
of the shells indicating that the otter, after having crunched olF one 
end, had sucked or scooped out the mollusc, in much the same way 
as those who are partial to shrimps dispose of that esculent crus- 
tacean. — Ed. 
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