As to how many years an otter in a wild state will live, it is practically impossible to say. We have seen otters killed by hounds, whose general appearance and state of their teeth pointed to the fact that they had arrived at a ripe old age. Otter cubs of similar age have been found in every month of the year, thus exploding the old supposition that otters bred only in spring. Young bitch otters appear to pair as soon as they arrive at maturity, thus cubs are produced as above stated.
Otters of abnormal colour make their appearance from time to time. In the Badminnten volume on "Hunting," there is an account of a cream-coloured otter killed on the West Dart, while in "A Fauna of Argyll" by Harvie-Brown and Buckley, there is mention of a pure white otter which was killed in Jura.
Although a clean-feeding animal, the otter is a creature one hardly associates with human food. For all that the heart and other portions of an otter's anatomy have been served up at table on several occasions ere now, presumably we suppose for experimental purposes. Which reminds us of the yarn concerning the old trapper, who when asked if he had ever eaten turkey-buzzard, replied "Yes, siree, I have eaten turkey-buzzard, but I don't hanker after it." On one occasion we became possessed of a dead otter, whose carcass, after skinning, we presented to two dogs. The latter promptly turned up their noses at it, whereas several cats to which it was afterwards given set about devouring it quite keenly. In the case of hounds, unless the carcass of their quarry is still warm and they are excited by the free use of horn and voice, they will show no great desire to do more than tear the body of an otter.
The otter's hide—covering a sinuous body, with loosely articulated limbs—is tough, and offers more resistance to hounds' teeth than the skin of a fox, which soon disintegrates when worried by the pack. As far as hounds are concerned, the scent of an otter must at times be to them exceedingly strong, yet to the human nose—even if the latter is held close to the animal's body—there is only a faint and not unpleasant odour, very different to the rank scent of a fox.
As previously mentioned, there appears to be considerable uncertainty as to how long the bitch otter goes with young. In the "Master of Game," the oldest and most important work on the chase in the English language, written between the years 1406 and 1413 by Edward III.'s grandson Edward, second Duke of York, there is a short chapter on "The Otter and His Nature," in which it says that the otter bears her young as long as the ferret does. This chapter is of great interest, both as regards the knowledge of venery possessed by mediaeval hunters, and the quaint wording of the letterpress. For this reason we take the liberty of quoting it in full. It says, "An otter is a common beast enough and therefore I need not tell of his making. She liveth with (on?) fish and dwelleth by rivers and by ponds and stanks (pools). And sometimes she feedeth on grass of the meadows and hideth gladly under the roots of trees near the rivers, and goeth to her feeding as doth other beasts to grass, but only in the new grass time, and to fish as I have said. They swimmeth in waters and rivers and sometimes diveth under the water when they will, and therefore no fish can escape them unless it be too great a one. They doth great harm specially in ponds and stanks, for a couple of otters without more shall well destroy the fish of a great pond or great stank, and therefore men hunt them. They go in their love at the time that ferrets do, so they that hold (keep) ferrets in their houses may well know the time thereof. They bear their whelps as long as the ferrets and sometimes more and sometimes less. They whelp in holes under the trees near the rivers. Men hunt at them with hounds by great mastery, as I say hereafter.[1] And also men take them at other times in rivers with small cords as men do the fox with nets and with other gins. She hath an evil biting and venomous and with her strength defendeth herself mightily from the hounds. And when she is taken with nets unless men get to her at once she rendeth them with her teeth and delivereth herself out of them. Longer will I not make mention of her, nor of her nature, for the hunting at her is the best that men may see of her, save only that she has the foot of a goose, for she hath a little skin from one claw to another, and she hath no heel save that she hath a little lump under the foot, and men speak of the steps or the marches of the otter as men speak of the trace of the hart, and his fumes (excrements) tredeles or spraints. The otter dwelleth but little in one place, for where she goeth the fish be sore afraid. Sometimes she will swim upwards and downwards seeking the fish a mile or two unless it be in a stank.
[1] The author of "Master of Game" does not say anything more about the otter.
"Of the remnant of his nature I refer to Milbourne[2] the king's otter-hunter."
[2] The Milbourne referred to by the Duke of York can scarcely be any other than the William Melbourne we find mentioned in Henry IV's reign as "Valet of our Otterhounds" (note in appendix to "Master of Game").
If otters "bear their whelps as long as the ferrets," the period of gestation is six weeks or forty-five days. Bitch ferrets come in heat in April or May, and unless mated some of them apparently remain more or less in that condition during the summer months.