The Life Story of an Otter

by J. C. Tregarthen

Less than a dozen yards of cover remained when the old man, in his anxiety to get a glimpse of the otter, knelt down and peeped through the stems. Only the head of the otter showed, but the eyes of man and beast met. Before the marshman could regain his feet, the creature had bolted, making wild leaps in its attempt to escape. Bang! bang! first one barrel, then the other; and the old man, who believed he had wounded the animal, started in mad pursuit. For a few strides he actually gained on the short-legged creature: but for want of breath he might have overtaken it. As it was, all he could do after covering a score yards was to lament his helplessness, and watch the huge dark form draw farther and farther away. ‘What a grand beast!’ he gasped again and again; then suddenly, ‘He’s down!’ he exclaimed, starting to run. But the otter was not down: not a pellet had struck him: he was only lost to sight in a drift. When he reappeared near the bar, the excited marshman saw his error, and once more stood to watch. On reaching the ridge the otter ran along it, showing his magnificent proportions. Once he stopped to look back at his enemy; a few moments later he disappeared from view, and the old man turned on his heel and made for home.

CHAPTER XI

BACK IN THE OLD HAUNTS

On passing out of the old man’s sight the otter made for the cliffs, where he lay close, impatiently awaiting nightfall that he might return to his mate. The light had scarcely faded when he took to the water. Early though it was to be abroad, he had not got far before he espied her swimming towards him, and presently he saw that she held a cub in her mouth. The reports of the gun had made her apprehensive for the safety of her young, the tiniest of which she was removing first to the clitter. The sea was rough and the spindrift blinding, yet she held on with her precious burden till she had reached a cave behind the boulders and laid the dripping mite in a nest there. Then she hurried back for another; when that was placed beside the first she fetched another, and yet another, till all four were in safety.

As soon as she had deposited the last she assisted her mate to scour the sea-bed between the cliffs and the Seal Rock in search of prey to relieve her maddening hunger. For hours the couple drew likely ground without result; but when they were about to end their quest they came on a stray pot containing a big crayfish. The find was as welcome as it was unexpected. In their eagerness to get at the prize the starving creatures swarmed about the osier cage like terriers about a rat-trap, vainly striving to find a way between the bars or through the aperture at the top, which was all but closed by the battering the pot had received. It was a most tantalizing situation. The otters’ only hope was to stay near the cage until tide and ground-swell should drive it ashore, dash it to pieces against the cliff, and leave the crayfish at their mercy. So through the long night they never left it except to breathe. In the end their patience was rewarded. The breakers got hold of the trap, tumbled it over and over, and wedged it between two rocks, smashing one of the bars, and making a hole through which the female otter managed to squeeze. In a twinkling she had seized the fish and crushed its life out. As soon as the wave which covered her withdrew, she began devouring her prey. Whilst she feasted, the otter made frantic efforts to get in, but failed, and presently desisted, contenting himself with the bits that escaped through the bars. The tide rose, yet the little creature, despite the rush of the waters and the blows she received from the stone that weighted the pot, remained where she was until she had consumed all except the feelers and harder parts of the shell; then, leaving by the way she had entered, she skirted reef and ledge in the dawn-light, and made straight for the clitter. Her one thought was for her famished cubs, which, before the sun was very high, she was suckling from her abundance, purring whilst they fed.

That day a thaw set in, and a shag appeared on the Seal Rock; The otter, who had shifted his quarters to avoid the drippings from the cliffs, after watching the bird’s fishing for a time, began himself to fish. At the end of a long, fruitless quest he landed; but now, in his extremity, no longer careful for his safety, he lay out in the open on a granite boulder. Happily no harm came of it. Through the night he and his mate hunted in the deep water beyond the rock, still without seeing a fin, so that when the sun peeped above the sea the creatures returned to the cliffs in despair. At noon the mother brought her puny little ones from the dank cave and laid them in the sun’s rays to enjoy the genial warmth; but as they soon cried to be fed, for fear their plaints might betray them she carried them back to the nest, and there, lulled by the sob of the restless tide, she at length dropped off to sleep.

She might have slept for two hours when the clamour of sea-fowl awakened her and brought her in haste to the edge of the clitter, where the otter was already on his feet gazing at a flock of gulls, whose excited movements showed they were over fish. Whilst they looked the shoal disappeared, and the gulls dispersed—like the wonderful scouts they are—to watch for its return to the surface. The instant the birds congregated over an agitated patch of water between the clitter and the Seal Rock the eager otters slipped into the sea. Soon they were near enough to distinguish the silvery spoil in the beaks of the birds, and two minutes later they were in the middle of the shoal.

Luckily the fish were sprats, so small that the otters could eat them without landing, and if the shoal had remained long on the surface the animals would have filled themselves to repletion; but before they had gobbled down a tithe of what they needed the fish again sought the depths. The otters pursued as far as breath allowed, raising themselves in the water when they came up, to look towards the direction the fish had taken. Time after time they stood up to gaze over the heaving surface, but with the gathering of the dusk and the withdrawal of the gulls to the cliffs they ceased, and landed on the Seal Rock.

As the few sprats had excited rather than allayed their appetite, after a short rest they began to fish again, little dreaming of the struggle in which they were almost at once to be engaged. For they had scarcely reached the bottom when a tiny fish darted across an opening between two clumps of weed; close behind, in pursuit of it, came a big conger. At once they took up the chase of the pursuer where it followed its prey from tangle to rock and from rock to tangle and presently, when a sudden turn brought them within striking distance of the unsuspecting fish, they rose from beneath, careening over so as to fasten on the fleshy throat. Their teeth had scarcely met before the still depths were convulsed by the writhings of the fish in its efforts to shake off its assailants, who however hung on till their victim grew quieter. Then, using their tails and hind-feet, they raised their prey through fathom after fathom until, for lack of breath, they had to let go and come to the top. It was a few seconds only before they were back again; but the disabled fish made good use of the interval, and had reached the mouth of the cave when they overhauled it. They began anew to drag it towards the surface. The monster writhed in their grip, trying again and again to fold its tail about some projecting rock past which it was being lifted, but it failed to get a hold, and was borne up, and up, and up, until the stars were just visible through the water. Then the otters were again compelled to let go and rise to breathe. At the third attempt they barely held their own against the fish, so violent was its resistance; at the next, however, after a terrible struggle they succeeded in getting it to the surface, where with glowing eyes they lay and rested beside their ghostlike prey before essaying to land it. Soon they began towing it to the cliffs towards which the tide had drifted them, but before they had got far the conger, singling out the stronger enemy, strove to coil itself about the otter. Failing to get a grip of the slippery, lissom form, it lashed the sea as if to vent its rage at its own impotence. Then it took to shaking its head and snapping its jaws. The otters however had it helpless, and held grimly on their way till they brought it to the edge of the breakers, where from sheer exhaustion they let go, resting awhile to recover a little strength before committing themselves to the welter of the surf. Though the fish too seemed to be at its last gasp, suddenly, as if roused by the warning voice of the breakers to a final effort, it shook itself free from the otters, who had seized it as it stirred, and, with a great swirl, disappeared beneath the surface. Like a flash the otters were after it, but rose without it once and again. The third time the fish was between them. Almost immediately a wave bigger than its fellows curled over them, buried them in its mass of waters, and hurled them on the sand, up which the otters dragged their prize inch by inch till they had brought it to a wide table of rock beyond reach of the surf. Although out of the water, the conger still writhed until the otter bit through its great backbone; then it lay almost quiet whilst the starving creatures sliced and munched and gulped as if they never would be satisfied. Satiety however came at last, and when they could eat no more they withdrew to the clitter—night though it was—to sleep off the orgy that marked the close of the days of want.

With the continuance of mild weather pollack and plaice returned to the inshore waters, so that soon, through the plentiful supply of food, the otters regained their good condition, whilst the cubs lost their emaciated appearance and throve apace. From that time the ties that bound the otter to his mate grew looser and looser, and a week after the young had learnt to swim he left her altogether, to resume his solitary life.