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Rh Quick as thought I pushed my open hand through the branches to the mouth of the hole, to stop the otter (if I should have the luck to be in time) from rushing out, thinking I would wait there (for a week if necessary !) until some one should pass by who would either go for a spade or send some one with one. The otter however saved me the trouble of what might have been a very inconveniently long wait by jumping at my hand and seizing me by the thumb. I closed my fingers round its lower jaw, and giving a ' mighty heave ' brought the otter plump into the boat. The other hand sufficed to disengage it from my thumb, and, to complete my good luck, I chanced to have my cartridges in a ferret-bag, so shaking them out I stuffed the otter in, and having made the string secure, gave vent to my feelings in wild hurrahs ! Not until the otter was actually in the boat did I dis- cover that she was not full grown, though of considerable size a circumstance doubtless just as well for my thumb. The bite was fairly severe, but I have had hundreds worse, and I was quite ready to catch any number more otters on the same terms. Five and a half years afterwards she was killed by another otter ; I macerated and articulated her skele- ton, and it was exhibited at the Fisheries Exhibition.

The following interesting remarks are very slightly abbreviated from the notes kindly given me by Mr. Uthwatt :

Otters lie in hollow trees, hollows in the banks and among roots, and are very fond of old stone drains and the sewers of towns. The claws of otters inhabiting rocky or gravelly streams are found to be worn down. If an otter's claws ap- pear to be freshly worn down, it has been dis- turbed from its usual haunts, and has been travel- ling in search of a fresh habitation or of one of the opposite sex. The male is however solitary, and two adult males are never found together. It is curious that when otters are killed, even when one is chopped, nothing is found in the stomach.

Probably this is because, owing to the peculiarly small size of the oesophagus neces- sitating the very complete mastication of the food, it is quickly digested. Mr. Uthwatt has seen slides down banks of snow, and tracks, as if otters had been sliding in the way described of the North American species in Mr. Harting's account in the Zoologist, 1894, p. 379, but has never met any one who has actually seen them using the slide.

Otters are also fond of rolling on grass, and it is probable that this is done to some extent in order to get rid of the large ticks, with which they are sometimes infested.

In Bucks, otters are not often found at a dis- tance from water, as is the case in more mountain- ous parts of the country, where the smaller rivers run very low in the heat of summer.

Mr. Uthwatt remarks that an otter ' gener- ally chooses a very hidden spot in which to have young, either in a water-worn hollow beneath the bank, or a hollow tree, or a tree root.' I have known used as nurseries the cup-shaped top of a pollard willow, and the interior of a hay-rick built on an eyot, above and below Great Marlow respectively ; and the dry arch of a bridge over the Cherwell (Oxon), the nest in this instance consisting of a large accumulation of water weeds. I have no doubt also that they not unfre- quently nest in spaces accessible only by water in the foundation of the mills on the Thames.

They may be enticed away from stretches of water where it is impossible to hunt them by making artificial holts convenient for them. Mr. Frank Higgens of Buckingham has been very suc- cessful in this. The nest is formed of reeds and grass. The bitch will take care never to leave her ' wedgings,' or the slightest sign of her presence, on the banks of the river where she has established her nursery, and either never uses the banks at all until the cubs are able to swim, or else nature has provided that she shall leave no scent during the period. She generally lays up her ' wedgings ' in a secret place, often in the same cavity as the nest, if it is large enough.

One can tell that an otter has young, if when she is hunted, after being put down by the hounds, she determinedly keeps away from the spot where she was found.

A bitch is a good deal more difficult to hunt than a dog, being gamer, not so lazy, more rapid in her movements and much more crafty. We have frequently hunted a bitch for hours in a weedy river without even viewing her chain. Cubs look after themselves as soon as they lose their milk-teeth.

In its nocturnal wanderings in search of prey, an otter never swims much of the river at a time, but cuts overland across the bends, leaving what is technically known as 'the drag.' The strongest scent is left by the ' dripping drag,' which is where the water was still dripping off its coat. The drag generally ceases about a hundred yards from the holt, the remaining distance being tra- versed in the water.

In hunting, the bank of the river to which the wind is blowing is usually drawn, generally up stream, until a drag is struck. An otter generally works the side to which the wind blows when going out, and the side from which it blows when returning to its holt.

If it is a last night's drag, the pace in the rich meadow land of the midlands is fast enough to tax the best runner, unless he knows the country and is able to run cunning, and there is always the