97 
L U T R A CANADENSIS . — S abine, Var. 
(Lataxina Mollis. — Gray.) 
Canada Otter. 
PLATE CX XII.— Male. 
In our second volume (p. 12) we promised to give a figure of this variety 
of the Canada Otter, and in our remarks we noticed the publication 
of varieties of that animal as distinct species, by Gray, P. Cuvier, and 
Waterhouse. 
Mr. Gray, we presume, thought that a larger and different species 
existed near Hudson’s Bay, and named his specimen Lataxina Mollis , calling 
the animal the Great Northern Otter. 
The figure now before you was published, notwithstanding our doubts as 
to the specific differences Mr. Gray thinks are observable between the 
Otters of Hudson’s Bay and those of Canada and the United States, for 
the purpose of giving a correct drawing of the identical specimen named 
and described by that gentleman, in order that it. might be seen that it is 
only a large variety of the common American Otter. 
Besides giving a figure of Mr. Gray’s Otter, we have examined Otters 
from very distant localities, having compared some taken near Montreal 
with one shot on the Hackensack river, New Jersey, several killed in 
South Carolina, one trapped in Texas, and one from California, and we 
are of opinion that, although differing in size and colour, the Otters of all 
these different localities are the same species, viz. L. Canadensis, the Canada 
Otter. 
Besides the variations observable in the colour of the Otter, the fur of 
the more northern species is finer than any of the southern. 
As already stated (vol. ii. p. 11) we have not had an opportunity of 
comparing specimens from Brazil with ours, and the description given by 
Ray of Lutra Braziliensis is so vague and unsatisfactory that we cannot 
state with confidence that his animal is identical with the North American 
species. We strongly suspect, however, that it is, in which case Ray’s 
name, L. Biaziliensis, should be substituted for L. Canadensis, to which we 
would add as synonymes Lataxina Mollis of GRAy, and another supposed 
species by the same author, Lutra Californica. 
We have nothing to add to the account of the habits of this animal given 
in our second volume (see p. 5), 
VOL, hi,— 13 
