THE SEA-OTTER 
281 
have never seen an otter leap out of the water in 
play as described. It is only when one is being hard 
chased that he will take to “ breaching/ 5 as the 
hunters call it. Pechnel-Loesche’s remarks probably 
apply to the fur-seal, not the sea-otter. 
Even Mr. R. Lydekker, in his most recently 
published account of the sea-otter, makes a few 
mistakes which I venture to correct. He represents 
the animal as feeding upon clams amongst other 
things. Possibly the sea-otter would eat clams, but, 
so far as my experience goes, the places frequented 
by the sea-otter are not suited for clams ; moreover, 
clams bury themselves in the mud or sand, and could 
not be dug out by the otter. It loves the rocks and 
a rocky bottom ; wherever there is much sand or 
mud, that place is avoided by the otter. Mr. 
Lydekker says : “ In the earlier days the sea-otters 
were in the habit of coming ashore, both to feed on 
the sea-urchins and shell-fish thrown up by the tide, 
and for the purpose of repose and breeding. 55 That 
they went on shore for feeding purposes I very much 
doubt, as in all my experience I have never seen 
sufficient sea-urchins or shell-fish thrown up by the 
tide to feed a baby otter even for a day, whilst there 
are myriads lying on the rocky bottoms where the 
kelp grows, in from 10 to 25 fathoms of water. The 
otter appears to prefer to get its food at these depths. 
I have never seen them diving for food in even 4 or 
5 fathoms of water, though at times they probably do. 
As to Mr. Lydekker 5 s criticism that shooting the 
sea-otter is 4C a wasteful method of capture, 55 I beg 
to differ. The rifle is used, not a shot-gun, and 
during the many years of my experience in the 
capture, by shooting, of over 1,000 sea-otters, only 
