The Life Story of an Otter

reeds are sapless, the flags stained by decay, the tall-stemmed flowering plants shrivelled to skeletons, disarray and discoloration appear everywhere, save perhaps in the v

ther, and it is little wonder that he should have attracted the notice of sportsmen and become the talk of the country-side. For though since he reached his prime no one has caught more than a glimpse of him, yet keeper, b

the otter being accounted for, no one save his wife and the old butler knew his disappointment. But disappointed he was; and indeed it was almost inexplicable that the hounds should not have chanced on the otter, for he kept to the usual trail

in became so entangled in an alder-root that he was able to wrench himself free. Soon after he was shot at by old Ikey, the wild-fowler, in the channel connecting the Big and the Little Liddens. His quickness in diving at the flash alone saved him, for the man was a dead shot. One night he came on a gang of poachers 'burning the reed' in the pool

fresh-run fish; but, mighty hunter that he was, he was s

noticed only the remains of the otter's banquet, 'think of it? You didn't holloa like that for an old fish, did 'ee? I thought somebody was drow--' Before he could finish the word he saw and, understan

ing near the kill, I'm thinking, but miles and miles awa'-at Lone Tarn, maybe, or by the Leeddens. That pri

e, F.Z.S.

AY UP TH

was always on the move, seeming to think it unsafe to sleep two successive days in the same hover. In one fastness, however, he was content to linger-the headland between the Gull Rock and the Shark's Fin. There he would stay for days together, held by the drear solitude, the supply of fish, and the snug lying in the caves that honeycombed the cliff, where man never came, and where, whether the wind blew from the east or from the west, the otter, who disliked exposure to it as much as any fox, could always find a re

stems; then the fierce, restless eyes proclaim him a savage and an outlaw as he scans bar and cliff and creek. On the bare patch on the hillside his glance rests a moment-one would say the removal of the furze was a matter of concern to him; but soon, apparently satisfied, he falls to grooming the glossy coat which is his pride. He bestows much care o

, made straight for the fishing-ground some two furlongs from the shore, dived, and began scouring the sand and the rocks that chequered it. He looked more like a conger than a beast of prey; yet the fish were quick to recognize their dreaded enemy, and darted from his path. Of sand-eels and flat-fish he took no heed, but gave chase to a bass, pursuing it till it was lost to sight in the depths beyond; then, his lungs being exhausted, he shot up through the seven fathoms of water and lay awhile on the surface, now in the

Matched in weight and strength as they were, it is doubtful whether the otter would have got the mastery even in the open: in the conger's own retreat the attempt was hopeless. But the otter did not realize that, and made frantic efforts to drag the fish from its den. Despite them all he failed to move it a single inch, and the only result of his struggles was to free

cave, face to face with his enemy, this time with tactics sobered by experience. Instead of laying hold of the fish, he

k. There was no way in, however, and again the baulked marauder had to ascend to take breath. Three times more he made his way down

on the topmost boulder, gained the crest of the cliff, and so crossed to the creek. There he cruised restlessly from bank to bank, raising himself at times half out of the water and looking round as if in search of something. Presently he took to the furze brake that mantles the slope and, traversing the bare patch, passed up the misty valley, only to return to the sand-hills beyond the cottage, w

ed the hair to rise on his neck as it had risen on the neck of his father at the thought of the pike of Lone Tarn, so that the sun had climbed to half its height before he drowsed and forgot his troubles. Consequently it was late when he bestirred himself and took to the mere, where another dog-otter was already fishing. For a long time each was ignorant

old Comfort Farm, and close on cockcrow from the clitter where he himself had called an hour before. Every minute he expected the stranger to round the bluff and cross the bar, and prese

rowned. But the eddies by some decaying lilies told that the fight was still going on, and at last the beasts came up, it might be a yard apart. Quick as lightning they closed again and, rolling over and over, passed from sight a second time in the convulsed water. Then they half rose, and lashing the water with their powerful tails, kept snapping at each other with a viciousness that nothing could exceed, their savage snarls mingling with the clash of their teeth when they failed to get home. For over an hour the conflict raged, now above, now below the surface, till in the end, the old otter, unable to continue the battle, dived to escape further ma

e great quagmire where the stream rises, which in summer is but a thread of water winding through the waste of cotton grasses that nod over it. All day they lay asleep on dry couches in the heart of the mire, and at dusk the female led over the high ridge to the watershed that slopes to the northern cliffs where she had been reared. The stream they followed empties itself near a hamlet, and there in the cove under the very windows they fished until

ng through the turmoil of water at the narrow mouth of the nearest cave, they landed half-way in, climbed to a ledge, from that to another higher still, and there lay down on the bare rock and licked themselves, pausing now and again to look at the seals reclining on the beach of white sand that loomed in the darkness shrouding the inmost part of the cave. When they had completed their toilet they curled up on t

fronting the west, and there they fished and frolicked amongst the waves that broke on the shelly strand, and sought couches amongst the sea-rushes that tuft the dunes. They lingered there week after week till the weather changed, but on the night of a lurid sunset, rounded the grim promontory which marks the end of all the land, and set their faces towards the marsh.