10 
CANADA OTTER. 
writing materials, and not uiifrequentlj^ upsetting our ink-stand and de- 
ranging our papers. 
The American Otter has one litter annually, and the young, usually 
two and occasionally three in number, are brought forth about the mid- 
dle of April, according to Dr. Richardson, in high northern latitudes. In 
the Middle and Southern States they are about a month earlier, and 
probablj" litter in Texas and Mexico about the end of February. 
The nest, in which the Otter spends a great portion of the day and in 
which the young are deposited, we have had opportunities of exam- 
ining on several occasions. One we observed in an excavation three feet 
in diameter, in tlie bank of a rice field ; one in the hollow of a fallen tree, 
and a third under the root of a cypress, on the banks of Cooper river, in 
South Carolina ; the materials — sticks, grasses and leaves — were abun- 
dant ; the nest was large, in all cases protected from the rains, and above 
and beyond the influence of high water or freshets. 
.1. W. Audubon procured a fine specimen of the Otter, near Lagrange 
in Texas, on the twenty- third of February, 1846. It was shot whilst play- 
ing or sporting in a piece of swampy and partially flooded ground, about 
sunset, — its dimensions we have already given. 
Early writers have told us that the common Otter of Europe had long 
been taught to catch fish for its owners, and that in the houses of the 
great in Sweden, these animals were kept for that purpose, and would go 
out at a signal from the cook, catch fl.sh and bring it into the kitchen in 
order to be dressed for dinner. 
This, however improbable it may at first appear, is by no means un- 
likely, except that we doubt the fact of the animal’s going by itself for 
the fish. 
Bewick relates some anecdotes of Otters which captured salmon and 
other fish for their owners, for particulars of which we must refer our 
readers to his History of Quadrupeds. 
Our late relative and friend, N. Bertiioud, Esq., of St. Louis, told us 
some time since, that while travelling through the interior of the State 
of Ohio, he stopped at a house where the landlord had four Otters alive 
which were so gentle that they never failed to come when he whistled 
for them, and that when they approached their master they crawled 
along slowly and with much apparent humility towards him, and looked 
somewhat like enormous thick and .short snakes. 
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 
The geographical range of this species includes almost the whole con- 
