The Life Story of an Otter

ween the scudding wrack. Then he rose and listened. The waves broke against the point, the reeds hissed, the breakers thundered on the bar, but

soon, to his delight, he viewed his mother and sister swimming to meet him. The wild gambol

ase. Presently he was gripped by the male cub, but, freeing himself, forsook the weeds for the water outside, where, with distended jaws and fins erect, he darted now here, now there, to avoid his harassing pursuers. All was in vain. He had missed his earlier opportunities, and to escape in his exhausted condition was impossible. Conscious of this and determined not to die unavenged, he summoned his remaining strength, dashed at the otter, seized her by the throat, and held on despite her struggles. This however left him at the mercy of the cubs. Instantly they fastened on his shoulders and, using their powerful rudders, tried to raise him to the surface. Beating his tail, the fish for awhile succeeded in resisting their efforts; but in the en

aves that honeycomb the cliff behind. There they came on the remains of old feasts-fish bones, crab and lobster shells-and on old nests made of reeds. One cave there was where the muffled boom of the waves was broken by the tinkle of falling water, and where the skeletons of otters whitened the floor on the edge of the runlet that had worn a channel in the rock. Quickly leaving it, the animals made their way back along the low, tortuous passag

ted the island where two of them had kennelled the day before, and landed near a bramble brake, in which they curled up side by side. The cubs soon slept, but the excitement of the journey to the salmon river kept the otter awake longin

gnant backwater a will-o'-the-wisp kept dancing like a lantern swung by invisible hands. Splash! splash! the otters crossed the shallow pool near the stream; and again, splash! splash! they rushed through the shoal water beyond it before turning up the brae that led to the wind-swept moor. On, on the untiring creatures sped, more like agents of darkness executing some urgent commission than beasts of prey speeding to a new fishing-ground. Mile after mile of the desolate upland they traversed: at one spot skirting a cairn whence came that weirdest of all wild cries, the shrill chattering of badgers; at another, passing the only road over the moor, wh

by otters on its way up from the estuary, and was prepared for her coming. In a flash he was off downstream, leaving the otter far in his wake. At the tail of the pool he swung round, raising a big wave that greatly excited the cubs where they watched on the edge of the bank. After a short interv

rsuers. Pool after pool he passes at his utmost speed, making for a refuge that lies near the foot of the rapids. He had rested in it on his way up the river, and now swings into it and stays there gasping, in dread of discovery. The otters soon show on the top of the rushing waters, which they search as they descend, ducking their heads, and yet avoiding the rocks against which the current threatens to dash them. In a few seconds they are close to the spot where the fish lies exhausted, and surely one or other will get a glimpse of him. But no, the sh

makes itself heard. It is the toot of the horn. The twice-hunted otter dreads that sound above all sounds save the cry of the hounds, and before it has died away she and the cubs are in full retreat to the holt in the salmon pool. Only at long

enter the pool and cluster like maddened things about the holt. 'A good solid mark,' shouts the doctor to the squire. 'He's there right enough.' The foremost hounds can see the otter where she stands hissing through her white teeth, but they cannot reach her. So the hounds are called off that a terrier may get at the quarry, an

AN OTTER.

s, and even succeeds in gaining Longen Pool, famous in the annals of the Hunt. However, the hounds again press her sorely, and after a while she takes to the tangled coppice on the hillside, traverses it, reaches an ancient hedgerow matted with bramble and thorn, and there lies listening, trusting to have escaped pursuit. But she has left a burning scent, and soon the cry of the pursuers warns her that her hopes are vain. Nevertheless, a

ice beyond the orchard, and as he knocked the ashes from his pipe before going indoors, said: 'They

d the next; after that they gave up the

re able to fend for themselves. Indeed, as has been seen, the male cub had already sh

error once when they happened on the remains of one of their kind recently killed by the hounds. On the discovery they were at once all consternation, as their puffing and blowing showed, and forthwith forsook the tributary for the river, kennelling at the end of their hurried retreat in a hover below the mill. They lay in this holt on the following day, but the next found them ensconced under the bank of the weir pool at Tide End. There they were waked towards noon by the tide, which rose and rose till it invaded their quarters, and compelled them to seek refuge in the opposite bank, where a young dog-otter was already lying up. Their coming startled him not a little, but the moment he saw the new arrivals were otters like himself he settled down again, and soon all three were sound asleep. At dusk they journeyed on together and, after fishing and sporting in the salmon pool below the morass, sought the roots of the alder. They lay t