THE COMMON OTTER.[187]
UNDER VIEW OF SKULL OF COMMON OTTER. (After Coues.)
UNDER VIEW OF SKULL OF COMMON OTTER. (After Coues.)
We now come to the most thoroughly aquatic of the Fissipedia, the sub-family of Otters, animals which, although quite capable of active and unembarrassed movement on land, are yet thoroughly at home only in the water. In accordance with this mode of life, the toes are webbed, and provided with very short claws, and the tail is long, tapering, and flattened, so as to serve the precise purpose of the corresponding appendage in a fish. The length of the head and body is about two feet, that of the tail, one foot five inches. The fur is of a soft brown colour, becoming lighter on the under side of the throat and the breast, and consists of long, coarse, shining hairs, with a short under-fur of fine texture, well calculated to preserve equality of temperature as the animal resorts alternately to land or water. The skull is greatly elongated, and flattened from above downwards; the facial part of it is small, as compared with the brain-containing or cranial part. The region of the skull between the eyes is very narrow, and its floor is wide and thin. In all these points, save the first mentioned, the skull of the Otter approaches that of the Seal. As to the teeth, there is one premolar less on each side of the lower jaw than in the Martens,[188]and both molars and premolars have sharp-pointed cusps, quite like those of the otherMustelidæ.
SIDE VIEW OF SKULL OF COMMON OTTER. (After Coues.)
SIDE VIEW OF SKULL OF COMMON OTTER. (After Coues.)
The habits of the Otter are so entirely aquatic, that in the good old times it was thought to be a sort of cross between a beast and a fish, just as the Bat was thought to be intermediate between a beast and a bird. So deeply rooted was this opinion that the Otter’s fleshwas considered quite fishy enough to be eaten by devout Catholics on fast days. To this Izaak Walton alludes in a well-known passage in his “Complete Angler.”
“Piscator.‘I pray, honest huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant question: do you hunt a beast or a fish?’“Huntsman.‘Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you; I leave it to be resolved by the College of Carthusians, who have made vows never to eat flesh. But I have heard the question hath been debated among many great clerks, and they seem to differ about it, yet most agree that her tail is fish; and if her body be fish too, then I may say that a fish will walk upon land.’”
“Piscator.‘I pray, honest huntsman, let me ask you a pleasant question: do you hunt a beast or a fish?’
“Huntsman.‘Sir, it is not in my power to resolve you; I leave it to be resolved by the College of Carthusians, who have made vows never to eat flesh. But I have heard the question hath been debated among many great clerks, and they seem to differ about it, yet most agree that her tail is fish; and if her body be fish too, then I may say that a fish will walk upon land.’”
The movements of the Otters in water are marvellous. They swim about in families, performing the most astonishing pranks, from mere exuberance of spirits and excess of energy. Nothing can give a better idea of their activity, than the description of them in that most delightful of natural history books and fairy tales, “Water Babies.”
“Suddenly Tom heard the strangest noise up the stream; cooing, and grunting, and whining, and squeaking, as if you had put into a bag two Stock Doves, nine Mice, three Guinea-pigs, and a blind puppy, and left them there to settle themselves and make music. He looked up the water, and there he saw a sight as strange as the noise; a great ball rolling over and over down the stream, seeming one moment of soft brown fur, and the next of shining glass: and yet it was not a ball; for sometimes it broke up and streamed away in pieces, and then it joined again; and all the while the noise came out of it louder and louder.
“Tom asked the Dragon-fly what it could be: but, of course, with his short sight, he could not even see it, though it was not ten yards away. So he took the neatest little header into the water, and started off to see for himself; and, when he came near, the ball turned out to be four or five beautiful creatures, many times larger than Tom, who were swimming about, and rolling, and diving, and twisting, and wrestling, and cuddling, and kissing, and biting, and scratching, in the most charming fashion that ever was seen. And if you don’t believe me, you may go to the Zoological Gardens (for I am afraid that you won’t see it nearer, unless, perhaps, you get up at five in the morning, and go down to Cordery’s Moor, and watch by the great withy pollard which hangs over the back-water, where the Otters breed sometimes), and then say, if Otters at play in the water are not the merriest, lithest, gracefullest creatures you ever saw.”
The Otter makes a sort of nest in hollows in the banks of the river in which it lives, but does not, as is sometimes stated, construct complicated burrows: its claws, indeed, are too weak for any such work. It usually confines itself to rivers, but is sometimes found on the sea-shore.
Otter hunting was formerly a very favourite sport. It was conducted with a special breed of Dogs—the Otter-hound—(see p. 141), and the spear was used for killing the animal when brought to bay.
Otters are quite capable of domestication, and may be taught to catch fish for their masters. For this purpose they must be caught young, and gradually brought to live upon bread and milk. When this end is attained, they are taught to fetch and carry, like a Dog—first sticks, &c., then a stuffed fish, then a dead one. When this part of their education is perfect, and they make no attempt to mangle the fish given to them, they are sent into the water to catch living fish. Otters are trained for this purpose in India, and also in China, where they are used by the fishermen of the Yang-tse-kiang. Mr. J. Thomson[189]says:—“We noticed men fishing with trained Otters in this part of the river. There were a number of boats, and each boat was furnished with an Otter tied to a cord. The animal was thrust into the water, and remained there until it had caught a fish; then it was hauled up, and the fisherman, placing his foot upon its tail, stamped vigorously until it had dropped its finny prey.”
There is one peculiar habit of the Canadian Otter[190]which is worthy of mention. “Their favourite sport is sliding, and for this purpose in winter the highest ridge of snow is selected, to the top of which the Otters scramble, when, lying on the belly, with the fore-feet backwards, they give themselves an impulse with their hindlegs, and swiftly glide head foremost down the declivity, sometimes for the distance of twenty yards. This sport they continue apparently with the keenest enjoyment until fatigue or hunger induces them to desist.”
COMMON OTTERS.❏LARGER IMAGE
COMMON OTTERS.
❏LARGER IMAGE
In the Margined-tailed Otter[191]the skull characters, which we have mentioned as distinctive of Otters, especially the narrowness of the region between the eyes, and the shortness of the nasal region, are so exaggerated, that the animal approaches towards the Sea Otter, of which we shall speak next. The Margined-tailed Otter, which is found in Brazil and Surinam, derives its name from a longitudinal ridge on each side of its conical tail. The fur is of a bright bay-brown colour, both above and below.