Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/331

Rh least disposed towards water, and will not, when they can avoid it, deign to wet a foot, much less to plunge into that element." To this Mr. Harting adds a note:—"It is generally supposed that Otters live exclusively on fish, but such is not invariably the case. They are carnivorous as well as piscivorous, and have been known to eat Ducks and Teal, and, while in confinement, young Pigeons. Frogs form part of their bill of fare, and even Mussels at times furnish food to these animals." The Common Armadillo (Dasypus villosus) is an adroit capturer of Mice, and Mr. Hudson "frequently found their stomachs stuffed with clover, and, stranger still, with the large hard grains of the maize swallowed entire." "The Zoo Otters have conformed to the universal tendency to extend the range of diet by eating shipbiscuit as well as fish." According to Mr. Lydekker, Otters have been known when hard pressed during winter to make occasional raids on the farmyard, where they have been asserted not only to kill poultry, but also young Lambs and Pigs. As stated by Mr. Dimmock, "Adolph Müller mentions that his Cat regularly hunted at twilight the moths, chiefly Noctuidæ, in his garden" ('Zool. Garten,' Aug. 1880, jahr. 21, pp. 253–4). He also states, from his own experience: "About 1870 I had a Cat that nearly every hot afternoon in summer and autumn caught Grasshoppers (Caloptenus and Œdipoda), and brought me her insect captures alive before eating them, with as much pride as if she had taken Mice or birds." He also noticed "several Cats capture and eat beetles of the genera Lachnosterna and Prionus; the odour of the beetles of the latter genus seems sufficiently pungent and repulsive to drive away Cats, since they dislike most pungent odours; but I have seen two Cats that apparently regarded Prionus as a delicacy, for they would eat dead, mutilated, sometimes half-decayed beetles of this genus which they found about the yard." Of the North American Mustela vison Darwin relates, "During the summer this animal dives for and Zool. 4th ser. vol. III., July, 1899.