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4 snatched another forty winks. But as morning after morning passed without intrusion of aught to warrant her suspicions, her vigilance gradually relaxed; and one noon, when she was very weary from the night's foraging, she curled up and fell sound asleep at her post.

Whilst she slept, a buzzard, mewing as he quartered the ground beneath, espied the cubs, and thinking they were at his mercy, stooped to seize the easy prey. He was about to lay hold of the smaller cub when the otter, awakened by the strange cry, rose from her hiding-place and confronted him. At sight of her the bird, taken aback, thought only of escape, but the mother was bent on avenging the attempted wrong. Quick as lightning she sprang at him, and, had not the hummock given way beneath her, she must have gripped him despite the frantic down-strokes of the big wings which lifted him well beyond her second leap. Her fierce eyes and bristling hair made her terrible to behold as she stood watching the marauder's retreat, and hissing the while like a fury. Then, as if fearful that the fray had attracted attention, she took her eyes off the bird and scrutinized the approaches to the morass before removing the cubs to the nest, where she stilled their complaints by fondling them until