The otter has three gaits: walking, jumping, and galloping. The walk shows a line—usually rather twisting—of footprints one behind the other. When jumping the tracks appear in pairs, with an interval between each pair. At this gait the imprints of the hind feet cover the tracks made by the forefeet. At the gallop, which is really jumping at top speed, the hind feet are thrown ahead of the forefeet.
[CHAPTER II]
THE OTTER'S HAUNTS AND HABITS
As mentioned in the previous chapter, otter cubs may be born in any month of the year. Prior to laying down her young, the bitch otter selects a couch in the vicinity of good feeding ground. Her choice of a retreat will vary with the locality in which she happens to be at the time. In the low country her cubs may be laid down in a dry drain in the meadows, where frogs are plentiful, and the ditches contain a supply of eels, or amongst the brushwood in some large covert, where the ground is swampy, and through which one or two small runners meander on their way to join the parent stream. In the north, where the rivers are swift and rocky, the cubs may first see the light of day in some cairn or pile of boulders, situated high up near the source of the stream, or in some rocky earth adjacent to a mountain tarn. On the grouse moor they may be found in some sod drain or other hiding-place amongst the peat and heather, near a pool or pools containing fish, and frequented by wildfowl as well as frogs and such small deer.
Quite small cubs are often found in holts in the bank of a main river, but it is pretty safe to say that the majority of bitch otters move up-stream, either to the head-waters, or up some side-runner prior to laying down their cubs. The latter have on various occasions been discovered actually beneath, or in close proximity to human habitations.
In the Field of October 29th, 1921, there is an interesting description of such an occurrence, which we take the liberty of quoting. It says: "An odd experience is recorded to have happened in the year 1790 to Mr William Bethel, the then owner of Watton, and a guest. He and a clergyman were sitting quietly at dinner, when they were surprised by an extraordinary noise beneath the dining-table for which they could not account, and at length they were so much annoyed by it that they sent for a workman to take up the floor, when to their great astonishment they found that an otter which had inhabited the moat had established her nest beneath the boards of the floor, and had there deposited her litter of young ones, by whose uncouth cries it was that the dinner-party had been disturbed."
In The Gamekeeper for May, 1914, there is another interesting account of a somewhat similar nature. It says: "On March 13th last, Mr Colwill, a tenant on the Trebartha Estate, Cornwall, lost a lamb, and there being a mouth of a large drain in the field, thought perhaps there might be a chance of the lamb having gone up the drain. Getting a long stick he put it up the drain, and feeling something move he thought it must be the lamb, but on turning round, saw the lamb coming up the field towards him. The same evening he put some lambs in the shippen in front of some cows, putting them on some hay. Before going to bed he went to see that the lambs were all right. He was just hanging up his lamp, when something—he could not see what—rushed out past him. When he went to look at his lamb, he found a young otter lying with the lamb."
The account goes on to say that on the particular night in question, the local rivers were in flood. The above seems to point to the fact that the bitch otter had been flooded out of the drain, and had carried her cub to the shelter of the shippen. A photograph of the lamb and the otter cub was reproduced in conjunction with the above letterpress.
Otter cubs, like young foxes, are born blind. Fox cubs remain so for a period of about three weeks, and it is probable that a similar length of time, or perhaps rather more, elapses ere young otters can see. In the Field of November 26th, 1921, there is an account of an otter cub whose mother was inadvertently killed by hounds. This cub was rescued and brought up by hand. When taken from the holt its age was estimated at fourteen days. Sixteen days later the cub opened its eyes, thus a period of thirty days elapsed from the time of its birth until it could see. At the end of the thirty days the cub weighed 14 ounces. It was at first fed on milk and water, but became very thin on this diet, so a change was made to "Mellins" as mixed for a new-born child. On this the cub thrived, its weight on October 11th being just under 2 lb. It was taken from the holt on August 20th. Had this cub been fed in the ordinary way by its mother it would possibly have opened its eyes at a rather earlier date, as it would have escaped the set-back caused by an unsuitable diet. The eyes of the adult otter are very dark coloured, but those of a cub are at first much lighter, not unlike the eyes of a young fox cub.