By permission of Percy Leigh Pemberton, Esq.
YOUNG OTTERS.
Otters, when taken young, can be trained to catch fish for their owners. In India several tribes employ them for this purpose.
The Common Otter is far the most attractive of the British carnivora. It is still fairly common all over Britain where fish exist. It is found on the Norfolk broads and rivers, all up the Thames, in Scotland, Devonshire, Wales, Cumberland, and Northumberland. It travels considerable distances from river to river, and sometimes gets into a preserved trout-pool or breeding-pond, and does much mischief. The beautiful young otters here figured are in Mr. Percy Leigh Pemberton's collection of British mammals at Ashford, Kent. Their owner made a large brick tank for them, where they were allowed to catch live fish. Once one of them seized a 4-lb. pike by the tail. The pike wriggled round and seized the otter's paw, but was soon placed hors de combat. The largest otter which the writer has seen was bolted by a ferret from a rabbit-warren on the edge of the Norfolk fen at Hockwold, and shot by the keeper, who was rabbiting.
Photo by the Duchess of Bedford] [Woburn Abbey.
TWO TAME OTTERS.
These two little otters were photographed by the Duchess of Bedford. Alluding to the old signs of the zodiac and their fondness for the watering-pot, their portrait was called "Aquarius" and "The Twins."
English dog otters sometimes weigh as much as 26 lbs. They regularly hunt down the rivers by night, returning before morning to their holt, where they sleep by day. No fish stands a chance with them. They swim after the fish in the open river, chase it under the bank, and then corner it, or seize it with a rush, just as the penguins catch gudgeon at the Zoo. Captain Salvin owned a famous tame otter which used to go for walks with him, and amuse itself by catching fish in the roadside ponds.
The Sea-otter.