When the cubs are able to travel, the bitch otter leads them down from the head-waters to the larger streams. The cubs remain with their mother for some considerable time, as witness the constant occurrence of cubs of from 10 lb. to 12 lb. being put down in company with the bitch. They consort with their mother until she goes off to rear another family, when they are then left to fend for themselves. From this it is apparent that the otter has but one litter per year.

There is a great deal yet to be learnt about the otter, for, being more or less a creature of the night, and elusive in its movements, it is extremely difficult to study systematically. Otter cubs, although somewhat delicate, are not difficult to hand-rear, and make very interesting and tractable pets. If healthy to start with, cows' milk diluted with water is at first a satisfactory diet. Both cubs and adult otters are of course easy enough to study in captivity, but like many other creatures confined under similar conditions, they soon exhibit certain abnormal tastes and habits, and therefore afford little or no real clue to their behaviour in their natural habitat. At the Zoological Gardens in London, the otters will eat almost anything thrown to them by visitors.

The bitch otter shows great affection for her young, and will hang about in their vicinity in the face of hounds or human intruders. If a bitch with cubs is killed, the cubs, if well grown, will search the vicinity for their parent, the same applying to one of a pair which has been caught in a trap, its mate remaining near it all night in an attempt to get it away. On these occasions the otters make a considerable noise, blowing and snorting in their agitation. On one occasion some years ago, a brother of ours found three small otter cubs on a Yorkshire beck, which he eventually captured. The bitch otter remained close at hand, making a great fuss, regardless of any possible danger to herself. The cubs were carried home, a distance of a mile or more, but were returned within a short time to the pool where they were found. The bitch otter again made her appearance, and eventually went off with her restored family.

Otters, being great nomads, wander long distances up and down our rivers, frequently crossing high watersheds, and travelling far across country. Having no fixed abode like the fox, the otter inhabits temporary retreats or holts during the course of his journeyings. Most of these holts have been used by generations of otters, and many a drain or other shelter long forgotten by the people of the neighbourhood is still regularly inhabited by Lutra and his kind. A holt may consist of a tree-root on the river-bank, a dry drain, or a wet one containing a dry lying place, a stick-heap near the stream, or situated in a plantation at some distance from the water. On the rocky rivers of the North, many of the holts consist of piled-up boulders on the hill-side, most of which are at some distance from the nearest beck or tarn. These rock-holts, many of which lie at a high altitude, are occupied by otters when crossing from stream to stream over a watershed. In summer, otters frequently "lie rough," or in other words spend the day above ground. Near a lake or tarn an otter will often curl up in the rushes or long grass at the water's edge. If disturbed he will then slide quietly into the pool, and unless hunted by hounds, will not show himself again. Sometimes he will lie on a bank or in a hedge close to the mouth of a drain, the latter serving him as a safe retreat when danger threatens. In fact, during the warm weather, otters are found lying rough in all sorts of unexpected places, often to the great surprise of those who fondly imagine that the animals never leave the vicinity of water.

Certain tree-roots and also rock-holts have their entrances under water. In some of them there cannot be any great amount of ventilation. An otter cannot live without air, yet presumably it can exist with less than most creatures. Otter cubs are sometimes laid down in holts of the above nature, where there is no ventilation shaft, and we have heard the theory expressed that under such conditions practically all the fresh air that the cubs get is carried in to them in their mother's coat. In our experience, however, even though a holt has an underwater entrance, there are usually plenty of air passages coming down from above, at any rate, sufficient to supply a more than adequate amount of fresh air for breathing purposes. The advantage of an underwater entrance to an otter lies in the fact that he can get in and out without showing himself, and once inside he may be "out of mark," or in other words, his scent is not carried to the outer air, so that if hounds come along they cannot wind him in his retreat.

After his night's peregrinations, an otter will return to his holt, but prior to settling down in his chosen retreat, he often visits one or two other tree-roots on the river-bank. Hounds sometimes mark at these places, only to find that their otter has gone on.

Along the sea coast, otters inhabit the water-worn caves and other retreats about the cliffs. Wherever there is an open boathouse on lake or river, otters are pretty sure to resort to it. We have examined many such places, and almost invariably found otter coke lying about on the planking, and sometimes actually in a boat or boats. In bad weather a boathouse affords a dry lying spot, and no doubt this is why otters visit it.

In order to thoroughly realise the wanderings and often long cross-country journeys undertaken by otters, one must track them in the snow. On one occasion such a trail led us for a good ten miles overland, the otter having left a stream, and made his way uphill via a small runner. The latter petered out in the open ground, but the trail led on in the direction of a frozen reservoir. Round this the otter had gone, then he followed the stream from the outlet for some distance, after which he turned straight across country. Three or four big stone walls had then intervened, but the otter—which had probably been over the same route before—made straight to certain smoots, and passed through with no unnecessary searching for a way out. He then visited a small lake, also frozen, and again took to the outlet stream, down which he went until he arrived at the main river. It must have been a pretty hard trip for so short-legged an animal, for the otter left a furrow in the snow which was quite deep. From the point where he left the stream where we picked up his tracks, to the spot where the trail entered the main river in the next dale across the watershed, the otter had not stopped once, but had kept toddling on. In the Lake District, otters regularly travel the passes over the hills, visiting the mountain tarns, and going from one dale to another.

Tunnel Made by Otter in Snow.
(Photo by R. Clapham). 		Otter Tracks in Snow, Jumping.
(Photo by R. Clapham). To face p. 53.