OUR DOMESTICATED OTTER.
One fine day in early autumn, while straying along the banks of one of the sparkling little trout streams which appear to be at once the cause and the purpose of those lovely winding valleys so numerous in Northern Devon, our attention was drawn, by a faint distressed chirping sound, to a small dark object stirring in the grass at some distance from the stream. We hurried to the spot, and there saw, to our great surprise, wet, muddy, and uneasily squirming at our feet, a baby otter! Poor infant! how came it there? By what concatenation of untoward circumstances did the helpless innocent find itself in a position so foreign to the habits of its kind? Its appearance under conditions so utterly at variance with our experience of the customs and manners of otter society, was so amazing, that we could scarcely believe our eyes. However, there the little creature undoubtedly was; and congratulating ourselves on this unlooked-for and valuable addition to our home menagerie—for these animals are rare in Devon, and to light upon a young scion of the race in evident need of a home and education was quite a piece of good luck—the forlorn bantling was promptly deposited in a coat-pocket and proudly borne homewards.
Introduced to the family circle, ‘Tim’—as he was afterwards duly christened—became at once the centre of domestic interest and unceasing care. To feed him was necessarily our first consideration. A feline or canine mother deprived of her young was suggested as a suitable foster-mother; but, unfortunately, no such animal was at hand, and meantime the creature must be fed. We therefore procured an ordinary infant’s feeding-bottle, and filling it with lukewarm cow’s milk, essayed thus to make good the absence of mamma-otter. At first the little stranger absolutely declined even to consider this arrangement, and in consequence pined somewhat; but in the end the pangs of hunger wrought a change in his feelings, and after several energetic though unscientific attempts, he overcame the difficulties of his new feeding apparatus, and was soon vigorously sucking. For a time, all went well. Tim, with commendable regularity, alternately filled himself with milk and slept peacefully in his basket of sweet hay. But at the close of the second day, a change came over our interesting charge; he was restless and uneasy during the night, and in the morning, refused to feed, and appeared to be suffering pain. Finally, his respiration became laboured and difficult, and for a whole day and night our hopes of rearing him were at the lowest ebb. But at the end of that time, to our great satisfaction, the distressing symptoms began to abate, and in a few hours had disappeared, and the convalescent returned con amore to his bottle. Believing his attack was attributable to over-feeding, we henceforth diluted the cow’s milk with warm water, and removed his bottle at the first sign of approaching satiety, nor did we again administer it until his demands for sustenance became vociferous and imperative. On this system we were successful in rearing him in the face of many prophecies of failure.
At this early stage of his existence, being exhibited to admiring friends, he crawled laboriously and flatly about on the carpet, with a decided preference for backward motion; but if he encountered a perpendicular surface, such as the sides of his hamper or a trouser-leg, he would, with the aid of his claws, climb up it with considerable agility. He distinctly showed a love of warmth, and gave us to understand that he appreciated caresses, by nestling down in feminine laps, and ceasing his plaintive cry while our hands were about him. On awakening from sleep, he would begin, as do ducklings and chickens, with a gentle reminder of his existence and requirements. If no notice were taken of this, the note—which was something between the magnified chirp of a chicken and the very earliest bark of a puppy—would steadily increase in power and insistence, until it became an absolute clamour. When his bottle was given to him, he would seize on the leather teat and tug at it, and plunge about with a violence and impatience which defeated its own end, and woe to the unwary or awkward fingers which came in the way of the tiny fine white teeth at this moment!
Obstacles overcome and success attained, Tim settled down to steady sober enjoyment; the webbed paws were alternately spread and closed like a cat’s when thoroughly content, and the tail curled and uncurled and wagged to and fro, as does a lamb’s when happily feeding. After the lapse of a few days, our new pet showed decided signs of intelligence and a sense of fun: he would run round after one’s finger in a clumsy-lively way, and a jocular poke in the ribs would rouse him to an awkwardly playful attempt to seize the offending digit. In less than three weeks he knew his name, and scuttled across the room when called, followed us about the garden, and endeavoured to establish friendly relations with a pet wild rabbit, which was furiously jealous of the new favourite, and administered sly scratches, and ‘hustled’ him on every possible occasion.
About this time, he also acquired a charming habit of beginning, the moment the sun rose, a clamour which deprived half the household of further sleep, and which was only to be quieted by his being taken into some one’s bed, where he would at once ‘snuggle’ down and lie motionless for hours. At first we resisted this importunity on the part of Tim, partly because an otter is not exactly the animal one would select as a bedfellow, and partly because we could not think it a desirable or wholesome habit for the creature itself. But Master Tim was too much for us. ‘If you won’t let me sleep with you, you shan’t sleep at all!’ he declared in unmistakable language, and by dint of sticking to his point he carried it.
At the end of the first month of his civilised life, some one gave him a scrap of raw meat; and after that, though he ate bread and milk very contentedly between times, he made us understand that his constitution required the support of animal food, and was never satisfied without his daily ration of uncooked flesh. Fish, strange to say, he seemed to prefer cooked. When we were seated at meals, a hand held down would bring Tim quickly to one’s side with an eager look in the small yellow eyes; his cold nose sniffed at one’s fingers with rapid closing and unclosing of the curiously formed nostrils; the softly furred head would be thrust into the palm in search of the expected dainty morsel. If none were to be found, his temper would be sadly ruffled, sometimes to the extent of inflicting with his teeth a sharp reminder that not even an otter’s feelings should be trifled with!
As he grew older, he developed an amount of intelligence scarcely to be expected from the small brain contained in the flat and somewhat snake-like head; he showed decided preferences for some members of the family over others; if permitted, he would follow everywhere at our heels like a dog, and played with the children after the manner of one, but with awkward springs and jumps that put us in mind of a particularly ungraceful lamb. He occasionally made quite energetic assaults on the ankles of some of the ladies of the family; and if he perceived that the owner of unprotected ankles went in fear of him, showed a malicious pleasure in renewing the attack at every favourable opportunity.
When the children went for a country ramble, Tim frequently accompanied them, taking the greatest delight in these excursions. He would be carried until beyond danger from wandering dogs, and then being set at liberty, the fun would begin. Master Tim, all eagerness, trotting on before in search of interesting facts, the children take advantage of a moment when all his faculties are engaged with some novelty attractive to the otter mind, to vanish through a neighbouring gate or behind a haystack. The unusual quiet soon arouses Tim’s suspicions; he looks round, and finds himself alone. The situation, from its strangeness, is appalling to him; he utters a shriek of despair, and scurries back as fast as his legs can take him, squeaking loudly all the time. If he should chance, in his fright, to pass by the hiding-place of his young protectors without discovering them, great is their delight. One little face after another peers out and watches, with mischievous glee, poor Tim’s plump and anxious form trundling along as fast as is possible to it in the wrong direction! But very soon the humour of the situation is too much for some young spirit, and a smothered laugh or a half-suppressed giggle reaches the tiny sharp ears, and Tim quickly turns, and with another shriek of mingled satisfaction and indignation, gives chase to his playful tormentors. Once arrived in the open meadows, where this novel game of hide-and-seek is not possible, it is Tim’s turn. Still, he follows obediently enough, frisking and gamboling in the fresh soft grass, until one of the innumerable small streams is approached. As soon as he catches sight of the water, he is off. At a rapid trot he hurries to the brink, and with swift and noiseless dart, in a flash he has disappeared in the current, and in another reappeared some yards away. Rolling over, turning, twisting, diving, he revels in his cold bath, and it is sometimes a matter of no small difficulty to get him out of the water. A cordon of children is formed—the two biggest with bare feet and legs, to cut off his retreat up and down stream—which, gradually closing in on him, seizes him at last; and reluctantly he is compelled to dry himself in the grass preparatory to returning to the forms and ceremonies of civilised life.