are very tempestuous.’ Several instances are known of their being drowned
in crab-pots, into which they had entered in search of prey, and had not
afterwards been able to find the opening.* Others have been taken far out
to sea.2
Sir Robert Sibbald long ago noted8 that ‘ The Sea-otter . . .. differeth
from the Land-otter, for it is bigger and the pile of its furre is tougher.’ These
Sea-otters were said to frequent the Firths of Forth and Tay, but I think there
are no (sea) Otters there now.
In Messrs. Harvie-Brown and Buckley’s ‘ Vertebrate Fauna of Argyll and
the Inner Hebrides’ 4 there is a description of a typical Sea-otter’s cave in the
Western Isles. ‘ On the island of Soay, amongst many inhabited holes of the
Storm Petrel, a most interesting Otter’s resting-place was discovered, and with a
spade was laid open for inspection from end to end. After cutting away the earthy
peat and close turf of an almost cheese-like consistency throughout the whole
length of the tunnel, laying back carefully each square or parallelogram of sod, we
measured the length, and found it just fifteen feet. The tunnel was in average
size throughout about one foot in diameter, except just at the far end, where it
decreased to about four inches. Here and there it was widened out into most
evident circular or oval chambers, and the sides and roof were smooth and glossy,
rubbed and polished by the passage to and fro of the animal’s fur. The habitation
had a cunning and gradual incline upwards into the peat bank from the entrance.
The latter was simply an uneven, rough, grassy-edged, and semi-concealed doorway
in the face of the peat slope. The passage led into and out of these larger
chambers over little ridges or elevations across the floor of the passage. Though
the walls of peat were damp, smooth, and glossy, and even slimy to the touch
throughout both passages and chambers, yet water could not lie in the hole unless
just at the aforesaid ridges, which intersected the entrances of the tunnel below
each chamber. Near the entrance of the hole, and about two to three feet from
it, was evidently the family “ kitchen-midden ” of the Otters, consisting of a very
considerable heap of the domestic “ rejectamenta,” not less than five or six inches
in height and nine inches in width. This occupied a side chamber made to one
side of the tunnel. Harvie-Brown gathered up a handful of this material, which
on examination was found to consist of fragments of shells o f mollusca, and upon
a more minute examination afterwards remains of fish, lobster-shells, and the hair
1 For an interesting account of the Otter in Cornwall I must refer my readers to Wild Life at the Land's End.
9 Field, 1884, p. 560; 1886, p. 331. 3 History o f Fife and Kinross (1710). • * P- *7-
| | f some small mammal were identified, It is much to be regretted that we did
not have a photograph of the place taken on the spot, laid open as it thus was to
the light of day, and the internal economy of the Otters’ home displayed.’
Emerging about sundown from its retreat in the bank or the reed-bed, the
Otter slips noiselessly into the water for the evening hunt. I f you are ever so
near you will not hear the slightest sound, S the movement of entering the water
is so easy and ‘ oily’ that the animal may almost be said to pour itself into
the stream.1 Ottl^i bften hunt alone, but sometimes two join together in
attacking salmo|j, although a full-grown Otter is individually quite capable of
killing a large fish. Swimming up stream rapidly, the Otter lands frequently,
especially where the rush of water impedes its progress, and, trotting or galloping,
briskly, cuts off cornerssf r passes up the rocks at the sides of waterfalls, till it
reaches some favourite fishing ground where food is plentiful. In this manner
Otters range over considerable distances/ during their evening and nocturnal
peregrinations, and their tracks of five rounded toes (called the Otter’s ‘ spur j , I
with the web mark often showing in the mud or sandy beach, are unmistakable
for those of any other creature. The brothers Stuart in their, charming 'L a y s o l
the Deer Forest (1848) long ago. noticed this trait of passing up stream overland,
where the current was too swift to proceed by water. ‘ In ascending a river, if
the bank will admit, the Otter invariably leaves the water at the rapids, and
takes the shore to the next pool; S that if there is an Otter on the stream his J
up track is sure to. be found at those places. In returning, however, he will often
float down the rapids with the current.’ In further describing the hunting of two
Otters the authors mention such a .place on the Beauly, close to Aileen Aigus’
house, which I know well, and where I have myself seen Otters’ tracks. There is
a narrow sandy beach, just above the roaring Linn 0’ Camps^bn the Tay, where
Otters nightly pass, after coming round the falls. On this bank it is likely that
more salmon have been landed by the angler than in any spot in Great Britain,
.as it is at the bottom of the famous Stobhall Pool. I have killed a good many
fish there myself, and have never landed without seeing Otter tracks, if the river
was at medium height or low. Curiously enough, I have never found S p r a in t s ’
(remains of digested food) there, or salmon killed by Otter; perhaps it is that the
constant advent of man makes them suspicious, for they always take their prey to
the still water on the south shore, into a small bay where there is a little grassy
‘ A well-known write, on natural history in an article in the JSadmitim Maga.in, speaks of the ‘ sullen plunge
of the Otter,’ surely a most infelicitous description.
VOL. II. c