THE OTTER : FISHING DOG. 
173 
the absence of the fishing dog. . . . The otter is given to console 
them in this misfortune, and in place of making this charming 
animal an auxiliary in the chase of fish, they make a redoubtable 
enemy of it, they put a price on its head. 
It does seem as though humanity were scarcely fit to be saved, 
when one coolly considers this profound stupidity about the wills 
of the Creator. 
If the otter had ever refused to lend its assistance to man when 
it has been asked ! But on the contrary it is happy to place all 
its brilliant faculties for fishing, at the service of man. 
Take a young otter — an otter from the teats — be amiable with 
it, and caress it as you behave toward your pups, and after two or 
three months it will cherish the same affection for you as your 
spaniel — it will follow you everywhere, it will mourn your absence, 
it will salute your return, stamping for joy ; and when you have 
kept it for some time on a diet of butcher’s meat, and taught it to 
understand the superiority of this food over fish, it will have no 
other. You will ask it tq seek for you in the fish pond or in the 
neighboring river, a respectable fish ; it will precipitate itself 
headlong, and in a few minutes bring you back the game you 
requested. 
You will only take care on thes'e occasions to stimulate its ardor 
with a small slice of mutton chop, which you will present to it the 
moment when it deposits its booty at your feet. It is no harder 
than this. I saw at Yerdun sur-Meuse, not long since, an otter 
thus trained, who was the delight of his master and the admira- 
tion of all amateurs. We have heard the interesting history of 
that otter, the pet of a king of Poland, whose wonderful skill long 
excited the envy of all the water spaniels of the court, and which 
a soldier, a guard of the palace, assassinated one day to make a 
muff out of his skin. His master wept for him. The Chinese, 
whom we treat as a people of maggots, and who with reason retort 
on us the epithet of barbarians ; the Chinese who are a people far 
more advanced than we are in the art of making use of beasts, 
have for centuries completely domesticated the otter. In this 
country every fisherman has his equipage of otters and of cor- 
morants for the fishery. These otters are trained to hunt in com- 
